Teleidoscope

Mon, Jun 30, 2008

Powerlines, Final Chapter

Posted at 9:07 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

The recycled asphalt gravel was delivered today and spread out. I have an all-weather driveway again. Mind you, my idea of a one lane wide driveway os a lot narrower than the backhoe operators. And they got careless about the property lines at the end of my driveway. I made them scrape the asphalt back onto my side of the boundary.

The power company trucks came back today to take down the last of the old power lines, which were left dangling from the pole like copper, lightning-attracting, maypole ribbons.
They drove across my neighbor's property to do it.

This evening I walked over to apologize to my neighbors for the power company trucks and the bozos with the backhoe. When I get my demolished front yard reconstructed, I'll have the landscapers put some topsoil and grass seed on the scraped place.

Once the backhoe goes away, I am almost done with Mr. Sparky. They are going to hire a roofer to patch the hole in my porch roof where the overhead lines used to go through, to keep out the weather and the critters.

And by way of apology for some of the hassle, Lori at the power company offered to have them take down the naked pole by my driveway for no charge. So that will be gone soon. (I have a suspicion that they want the pole for something, though one reason for putting the power lines underground was that the pole if too short for code, and cutting it off at ground level will make it even shorter.

I have a Mr. Tran of Green Mountain Landscaping stopping by tomorrow to look things over and give some estimates. I need to find a couple of other possible sources. I want multiple bids this time.

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Fri, Jun 27, 2008

Electric Contractor

Posted at 7:06 am MDT to Miscellaneous

I couldn't sleep last night, I was so upset about what they did to my yard, after all this delay and hassle.

I got up at 2:30 and wrote the note below, which I posted on both the 'Contact us' page on Mr. Sparky's web site, and also on the Tom Martino, Troubleshooter website. I am fed to the back teeth with listening to commercials where Mr. Martino (a consumer advocate) praises Mr. Sparky and its associated companies. I have heard them a lot because Mr. Sparky runs them on a loop instead of playing "On Hold" music.

---

I have had a horrible time with Mr. Sparky /Candlelight Electric. A major project that was supposed to take a week at the beginning of October 2007 remains an ongoing nightmare in the last week of June 2008, although it appears to be finally reaching a (fairly unsatisfactory) conclusion.

The original project was moderately complex. It involved moving my breaker box outside and bringing it up to code, as recommended by a Mr. Sparky inspector, as well as moving my power lines underground, which was also recommended, because the inspector said that the overhead lines were too low to meet code, and the pole in the driveay was too short to raise them high enough. Subsidiary projects included rebuilding part of my front porch to provide access to the new breaker box and grading and spreading roadbase on my driveway once the powerline trench was filled in.

I was assured that Mr. Sparky would coordinate everything with the power company (Excel) and the county building inspectors. That turned out not to be the case. The only reason the county ever inspected the new breaker box and closed the permit was because I kept calling both the Mr. Sparky office and the county for weeks several times a week, trying to find out what was going on. Mr. Sparky showed no interest or capacity for following through on the status of the project to bring it to completion.

The actual construction work was adequately done. They broke and repaired one of the pillars that support my porch roof, and cut th egas line while digging the trench for th epower lines, but I was happy with my newly expanded porch and the re-surfaced driveway, and the digging had carefully minimized the damage done by the trench to areas of my yard other than the driveway. The driveway itself had grown a bit larger than I expected, and there was some churned dirt running from the driveway to the house, but most of the places that had been grassy still were.

The only problem seemed to be that XCel had not yet switched the power from the overhead to the underground lines. I spent 3 months occasionally calling Mr Sparky to find out what the status of the changeover was, and getting the run-around from various departments at XCel. I eventually got in touch with the correct department at Xcel, or they got in touch with me.

At the beginning of March a representative from XCel informed me that the powerline project had not followed standard procedures and the trench would need to be re-done. They also were not happy with the location of the new breaker box.

I put XCel in touch with Mr. Sparky (which I should not have needed to do: Mr. Sparky should have been the ones dealing with XCel, not me) and the two companies spent several weeks arguing about what needed to be done. And then several more weeks trying to schedule the work.

I was assured that my yard and driveway would only remain dug up and unusable for a few days, when digging started on Thursday, June 13th. In fact, it was a week before the trench satisfied XCel and another week before XCel actually did the changeover, on Wednesday June 25.

A crew from Mr. Sparky arrived on the morning of June 26 to fill in the trench. I was working from home and available to answer questions, but they did not consult me. By the time they stopped for lunch, the trench was filled in, and they said they just needed to finish a few things. Those few things appear to include destroying my yard.

Before they left, they showed me the state of my yard, and I was too shocked to say much. Later, after my own workday ended, I pulled my truck into the place where my driveway is supposed to be and noticed a number of additions problems that had not been initially apparent.

Outstanding and problem items:

The backhoe crossed the property line onto my neighbor's property and the boundary is obscured at the end of the driveway.

A large drain pipe that was removed from under my driveway when the trench was being dug is still out of the ground and laying in my neighbor's yard.

Areas that were grassy even two days ago (while the trench and its dirt piles still existed) have been scraped down to bare soil, and probably to bare subsoil.

A 'berm' of subsoil (which I did NOT ask for) has been dumped on top of the topsoil directly in front of my house. Or possibly the topsoil was buried in the trench first. It is hard to tell. The visible soil is clearly not able to support life.

A ten to fifteen foot long section of an existing berm, which had been covered with grass and wild flowers, is just gone. There is a vertical cut in the berm as if someone had used a knife, showing clay and gravel under the grass. The berm was parallel to the driveway and several feet from the trench, and should not have been affected by the work.

The support post for the new section of porch built by the Mr. Sparky crew in October has been undermined, so that corner of the porch is no longer suported.

The holes through the porch roof where the overhead power cables came through are still open (and possibly inhabited by birds, which would not have happened if the changeover had occured last fall as previously scheduled).

I have ordered more roadbase to re-resurface the driveway. Mr. Sparky has promised to reimburse me. They said they would spread it on Monday (when it is due to be delivered), but considering the current state of my property after their most recent work, I am hesitant to let them do it.

I am very unlikely to renew my support contract with Candlelight, despite its convenience. And I will seek alternative electrical contractors for the interior electrical projects I have been postponing until the external project was done. I wish I knew whether Ross Munro was still in the area. He did an excellent job in October on the actual construction.

---

Two miles on the treadmill this morning even on basically no sleep. I guess being angry can be useful. 390 miles to Rivendell

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Thu, Jun 26, 2008

Powerlines, penultimate episode, I hope.

Posted at 6:17 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

The trench is filled in and my truck is parked in the barren expanse of dirt that used to be my driveway and front yard. I have ordered three more truckloads of recycled asphalt, for Monday delivery, to resurface the driveway. The electrical contractor has promised to reimburse me.

I will need to keep an eye on where they put it: the guys today used their backhoe to scrape bare a section adjacent to the driveway that I did not expect them to touch. They might have asked, instead of flattening stuff and wiping out one of the few patches of fertile dirt I had.

At least I'm no longer trapped behind the trench.

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Farewell Massage

Posted at 7:23 am MDT to Exercise

Marti, my massage therapist, is unexpectedly moving to Oklahoma next week to deal with a family medical situation, so last night was our last session. (At least for the foreseeable future.) It was a good session.

I can feel some soreness in my left butt, but Marti didn't feel heat in there, which is a very good sign. The soreness is probably not my hip trying to go out again. What I'm feeling is probably the workout soreness that accompanies muscle tissue growth.

The rest of the leg is also doing very well: there is a small patch at the front of my ankle and top of the foot that is still tender and swollen, but the rest of the leg is now a good match for the other one.

My arms were also in much better shape last night than 4 weeks ago, when they were such a mess that I could hardly let Marti work on them.

Marti gave me the name and number of another massage therapist. I'll need to make some appointments.

5 miles from Bag End on the road to Rivendell. I've met the dwarves at the inn. 392 miles to go.

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Wed, Jun 25, 2008

Power Lines episode 14

Posted at 4:19 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

I no longer have a long empty trench running the length of where my driveway should be.

Now I have a long trench with a live electric cable running down it. And the birds don't have a power line to sit on any more.

The electrical contractor is supposed to come tomorrow to fill things in. I assume they will also haul away the old overhead cable that still sitting in my yard.

I'm glad it stays light until late this week: I have a massage appointment this evening, and getting back to the house may be a bit of a challenge. I desperately need to do some grocery shopping, but I think that will wait until tomorrow, when the driveway should be usable.

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Tue, Jun 24, 2008

Powerlines 13

Posted at 5:45 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

According to the contractor (when I called them yesterday) the power company was supposed to make the powerline switch today.

When they hadn't shown up by midafternoon, I called the contractor (who did not get back to me) and the power company rep (who did). I really was on the schedule for today, but they had a transformer blow up this morning, so they may not get to me until tomorrow.

I'm glad I canceled the cleaning ladies for tomorrow: they wouldn't be able to get to the house with the driveway still dug up. I'm amazed the water delivery guy put two 5 gallon jugs on my porch... and I'm glad he didn't kill himself doing it

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Sun, Jun 22, 2008

Walking to Rivendell

Posted at 11:22 am MDT to Exercise

On this date in 2001 I weighed 40 pounds less than I do today, and my body fat percentage (I have a smart scale) was about 10 points lower.

Some of the reasons for the weight gain are medical: they took Propulsid off the market and my Synthroid dosage was lowered. Some of the weight gain was due to travelling, though my exercise journal indicates I kept up with my weight lifting and yoga pretty steadily for at least the first 20 pounds of the gain.

My weight has been pretty stable for the past year even without any exercise to speak of. I think it would start to drop if I added some exercise to my routine, especially with these diet changes.

In the past, walking has been what got my weight down to the ranges where yoga worked and weightlifting was... feasible. I need to do a lot more walking, but walking without a goal is boring.

In college I used to walk an extra mile or two most days, over and above the walking that was needed to go to classes and the library and the dining hall (the campus was quite hilly). I had a loop that went across campus, then down the hill to the public library, then farther down the hill to Main Street. Along Main Street there were two stops: a used book store and a news stand that sold comic books. Then back up the hill, but at the other end of campus, with a stop half-way up the hill at the University book store.

Now there is nowhere useful or interesting to walk to. I have a treadmill but that is the essence of goalless walking, though it decreases my exposure to heat and hayfever.

On the Eowyn's Challenge website, they have the travel mileages for the journeys in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Some people use them to track their exercise progress. I heard about it on Elizabeth Bear's LiveJournal matociquala. She's currently somewhere in the mines of Moria.

I decided to do the Hobbit routes first. Bilbo and the dwarves only travelled about 12 miles a day. As of this morning I'm one mile on the way from Bag End to Rivendell. I have crossed the bridge across the Water, and I am on the road to The Green Dragon in Bywater to meet the dwarves. 396 miles to go to Rivendell.

I may do some more walking later today. I need to do more than 1 mile a day if I'm going to get to Rivendell in less than a year.

And if I'm stiff tomorrow morning, it will give me the incentive to do some yoga.

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Sat, Jun 21, 2008

Midsummer 2008

Posted at 8:08 pm MDT to Weather

The summer solstice was historically called Midsummer because the solstices and equinoxes used to be considered the middles of the seasons, not the beginnings of them. May Day was the old beginning of summer.

Today was a slow day at the Farmers' Market, but the weather was beautiful.

Nanette's strawberries were in, for the first time this season. Store strawberries taste like plastic by comparison, even the organic ones. I think the store ones must be picked too early so they will survive shipping.

I asked the people at the Laudisio booth if they could make me a dairy-free pizza, and they were really nice about it. They loaded it with veggies and some sausage, making sure I could have everything before they added it. The flavor was a little strange without cheese, and stuff tended to fall off the crust without cheese to glue it on, but the pizza was delicious. It's hard to beat pizza crust baked in a wood-fired brick oven.

I may be begining to recover some balance... I'm beginning to be able to watch cooking shows again.

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Thu, Jun 19, 2008

Sunset

Posted at 8:00 pm MDT to Weather

Sunset today is supposed to be at 8:33 pm. It will actually be a little earlier here: weather.com doesn't take mountains on the western horizon into account.

This is important because I need to get up at 4:30 for a 5am to 1 pm work shift and I doubt I will be able to get to sleep before sunset.

According to the schedule I was originally given, there are five weeks left on the contract after tomorrow, but the customer has decided they want a break for a while after next week (I'm very productive and they are running out of things for me to do).

I'm not sure what they expect to do with four weeks of my time sometime in the indefinite future. On past experience it takes them a month, after an interruption, to get me set up with working logins and such so that I'm actually doing useful work. I'm not sure I care, either.

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Wed, Jun 18, 2008

Powerlines 12

Posted at 10:47 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Long day.

My DSL went out at 8 am so I went in to the office to work, after an hour and a half getting through to FRII and Qwest. The electrical contractors were working on the trench when I left.

It didn't look much different when I got home at 6:30 pm, but I assume they made progress. It would be nice to know what is supposed to happen next.

The office staff went out to lunch. I didn't go because i was on the clock and busy with a project for my client. Just as well: finding something to eat at the restaurant would have been annoying. My lunch was chips from the break room: it turns out Fritos, Ruffles and Lays Potato chips are pure products -- corn or potato, salt, corn oil.

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Tue, Jun 17, 2008

Power Lines

Posted at 4:49 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Early yesterday morning I thought I saw a power company truck driving away. Apparently I was right.

The power company doesn't like the trench the contractor dug. Among other things, they want it two feet deep, no more, no less, and the backhoe dug some parts of the trench deeper.

So tomorrow the guys from the contractor are coming back to work on it some more.

My birthday is two weeks from tomorrow. I am not taking bets on whether this will be done by then.

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Mon, Jun 16, 2008

Apricot stuffing

Posted at 11:11 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Yesterday I had a whole chicken breast to cook (both sides stll attached, and decided to try oven-roasting it. America's Test Kitchen has a recipe where they butterfly a chicken and roast it over a bed of stuffing, and I thought that would be adaptable to an articulated breast.

When I checked their website for oven temperature, etc. I found a recipe for stuffing that used ingredients I mostly had on hand. Tweakable to work around my new diet restrictions.

My version:

Dissolve 1/2 cup salt in two cups water, 
brine chicken for one hour

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

2 Tbs olive oil heated in skillet
1 cup fennel, chopped, cooked until softening

Add
1 clove garlic, pressed
1/3 cup chopped dried apricots
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
2 cups chicken broth
and bring to boiling

Stir in
1.5 cups wholewheat couscous
1/8 cup dried parsley
take of heat, and cover, allow couscous to absorb liquid

Take chicken out of brine, 
pat dry and spread skin with oil and pepper

Make an aluminum foil boat, spray with Pam, fill with stuffing  
Place in roasting pan, arrange chicken on top

Roast until 160+ degrees in thickest part of breast
check occasionally and add broth if couscous is drying out too much
Let chicken rest 10 minutes before serving

The original recipe called for 1/4 cup chopped unsalted toasted cashews, stirred in after the couscous is hydrated. I usually have cashews in the house, but I haven't been to Costco since I finished the last jar. Cashews would be good. I've noticed they have organic ones now at Costco.

The couscous needed more liquid so I kept adding chicken broth both before and during the roasting. A full butterflied chicken would have covered more of the stuffing and helped keep it from drying out, but whole wheat couscous also needs more liquid than plain.

I need to make a smaller batch of stuffing next time. A good small roasting pan would be nice, too. I used a 9x9 inch baking dish but metal would be better. The Mario Batali lasagna pan is enameled castiron, 9x13 by 3 inches deep. I've been thinking of getting one to match my Dutch oven ... It might be useful for this.

I may try a whole butterflied chicken someday, but I'd be eating it forever: it looks like I'll get 4 meals out of just this double breast.

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Sun, Jun 15, 2008

Cider Raisin Tapioca Pudding

Posted at 10:10 am MDT to Technology

2 cups organic cider
1.5 Tbs Minute Tapioca
allspice
raisins
.5 tsp vanilla

Mix everything but the raisins and vanilla. Let sit for a while. Add the raisins. Let sit for longer. Heat while stirring to a very full rolling boil. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Cool 20 minutes and put into desert cups. Serve at room temperature or cooler.

Notes: Needs more Tapioca next time, probably because it doesn't have eggs or dairy to help bind it. I also didn't use enough raisins, since I didn't want to waste them if it turned out inedible.

I think I'm craving textures and mouth-feel as much or more than flavors, when it comes to missing the dairy stuff. This pudding makes a change from dry, oily or grainy. And it's smoother and less pulpy than apple sauce.

By grainy I don't mean gritty. There is a difference in mouth-feel between real milk and veggie milks like soy or almond: the tongue can tell the difference between a solution and a suspension. Or maybe between starch and protein.

I'm sure rice milk will have the same effect, since I also noticed it in the dairy-free risotto the other night. Using stock instead of broth might help applications like the risotto, or possibly adding a little unflavored gelatin.

The starch vs. protein thing may also be part of the problem with the Egg Replacer stuff. I don't think gelatin will work in pancakes. But adding vanilla might help with the boring, cardboardy flavor. (It's a good thing Costco sells real vanilla in industrial quantities at reasonable prices. I have a feeling I'm going to be using a lot of it.)

Additional Notes:

I should get tested for cinnamon when I go back to the allergist.

A lemon-honey or lemon-orgeat tapioca pudding might be interesting.

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Floods

Posted at 8:41 am MDT to Current Events

Teresa Nielsen Hayden of Making Lighton the Iowa floods:

You know another big difference between this and Katrina? In New Orleans, the official hurricane evacuation plan was "Everyone who has a car, use it to get out of town." The ones who stayed were the poor, the helpless, the stubborn, the tourists, and some emergency personnel. In Iowa, you've got the whole community and its resources.

The thread has some great comments, and links to some wonderful/horrible photos of the flooding. Also an interesting playlist.

The odd thing about the saturday photos is that it was a bright, sunny day with a blue sky, and still the water was rising. It makes for a moment of cognitive dissonance: I think movie/TV visual shorthand may tie clouds and flooding more tightly together than is really the case. And of course, in a snow-melt flood, sun would be exactly what you didn't want.

---

And while I'm doing current events links, John Scalzi on "Whatever" had a wonderful rant on Fox News stupidity on Thursday that has been linked far and wide. (But that doesn't make it any less wonderful.)

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Sat, Jun 14, 2008

Power Lines... the ongoing saga, episode 10

Posted at 3:47 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

I got home from Farmers' Market a little after 2pm to find some power company trucks and equipment here in addition to the contractor guys. This surprised me, since the power company is not supposed to do their thing until Monday.

It turned out that they broke the gas line again. It was lucky that I got home before the power company guys left: one of them came into the house and made sure the furnace and water heater were burning. So I won't run out of hot water early next week the way I did after the last time the line was cut.

I'm just as glad I wan't here when they broke the li.ne. Not knowing about it until it was fixed is a lot less stressful, and I have NO energy available for handling additional stess at the moment.

I will be so glad when this is over. If it ever is

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Fri, Jun 13, 2008

Risotto

Posted at 8:44 pm MDT to Technology

Risotto just means 'rice' in Italian. What I'm making tonight isn't a classic risotto, since I can't use the usual small amount of butter nor the grated cheese, but a lot of the 'creaminess' of a good risotto actually comes from the starches in the rice.

I'm trying to add some layers of flavor to make up for the lack of cheese.

Ingredients

EV Olive Oil
chopped onion
minced garlic
a few strands of ancient saffron
chicken
dash of red pepper flakes
pinch dry basil flakes
pinch dry marjoram
pinch dry rosemary
dried porcini mushrooms, rehydrated
dried shitake mushrooms, rehydrated
canned mushrooms
white wine
tomato paste (enough to make the sauce very slightly pink)
anchovy paste (1/2 tsp?)
chicken broth
salt

It's OK. I'll add black pepper and a little more salt when I eat it. Maybe go a little heavier on the red pepper and anchovy paste next time.

Needs cheese.

Also needs the dried mushrooms cut smaller.

At least it's a change from cauliflower and salmon. (Eating alone means there are almost always leftovers. Someone needs to invent mini-cauliflowers) At least risotto freezes tolerably.

Capers. Adding capers at the end might be interesting... Maybe I'll try adding some to one of the leftover servings when I reheat it to see how they go with chicken/mushroom... stuff.

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Thu, Jun 12, 2008

Power Lines Yet Again, a Little Progress

Posted at 8:02 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Judson, from the electrical contractor, showed up this morning to start digging the trench needed for the power company bozos, who insist on redoing the work that was already done last fall.

He made very little progress, and stopped early because he was worried about breaking the trencher on my so-called soil and the rocks therein.

First thing tomorrow morning the equipment company is supposed to swap out the trencher in favor of a full-sized backhoe like the one Ross used last fall. Judson will come back with helpers and try to make some actual progress.

I've been assured that the trench will be ready to suit the power company's scheduled visit on Monday. I hope that is the case: Xcel seems to allow a very small window for availability for this project, and if we slip again it will probably be another month before we can get them back up here..

I assume they will hand-dig where they need to cross the gas line, so they don't break it again.

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Wed, Jun 11, 2008

Spike

Posted at 10:22 pm MDT to Media

I emailed in sick yesterday. This cold is a really nasty one -- we're sure it is a cold: Nanette developed the same symptoms at the same time I did, so we probably caught it at the same time from someone at market.

I think I'm getting a little better: my eyes are still watery enough to make reading a nuisance, but the pressure in my sinuses has eased enough that I hope to make it through the night without using any more Advil. Yesterday and earlier today the sinus pressure was so bad it was making my teeth hurt.

I'm coughing a lot, but I think that is because I have been breathing so much sludge. With the drainage slacking off, I hope the coghing will ease off too.

In the evenings I've been watching reruns of CSI (the Las Vegas one). They are new to me, since I have never watched the show in the past. Cartoon Network seems to be in one of its occasional cycles of very lame programming, and watching Food Network, my other usual selection, just makes me sad at the moment. On Monday Altom Brown made popovers: milk, eggs, sugar, and a small amount of flour.

The CSI reruns are on a cable channel called Spike, and I am outside their target demographic (males under 35? redneck males in general?) to a degree that makes the ads they run quite surreal.

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Mon, Jun 09, 2008

Summer Cold

Posted at 4:26 pm MDT to Weather

It was chilly and windy all weekend -- on Saturday at market I only shed the outermost layer of what I was wearing from 7am to 2 pm, and yesterday I left the heat on in the house all day and never switched the system over to A/C.

Today is nice, but I have either caught a cold or I'm having an allergic attack from hell. Sore throat. Major sneezing. Watery eyes. Congested and draining sinuses with a sort of seeping nose bleed (I think the sneezing ruptured some capillaries) that makes everything smell and taste like blood.

At least I'm not coughing. Much. And swallowing seems to be working, not that I have much appetite.

I hope this is a cold, actually. It would be depressing to totally disrupt my eating patterns to avoid food allergies and immediately get hammered by hay fever. It feels more like a cold: the sore throat hit first, which isn't a hay fever pattern.

Now I need to find something Ican eat that will cut through the sludge enough to be appetizing.

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Sun, Jun 08, 2008

Pancake Experiment

Posted at 1:43 pm MDT to Technology

One advantage of the powdered Egg Replacer is that you can make a half-egg's worth batch of things.

I made a 1/2 batch of my usual sourdough pancake/waffle recipe using egg replacer and almond milk. The texture was ok, but the flavor of the plain pancakes left a lot to be desired. (Fortunately, good maple syrup will cover a multitude of sins.) I think the rest of the batch is going to be donated to the wild birds.

They seemed to cook slowly. I wonder if the dairy and egg proteins affect the rate of browning. Need to review On Food and Cooking on maillot reactions.

The egg replacer seems to work all right as a binder, but it doesn't add any of the richness you get from milk and eggs. Cooking in bacon fat might help -- I've got some in the fridge.

Or schmaltz (rendered chicken fat). Can you buy actual schmaltz? I'd think places with serious kosher departments might have it. But I don't really know whether it has any flavor.

Maybe I should consider roasting a duck.

And I really need to figure out how to add some protein into the pancakes. You'd think, with almonds being nuts, the milk would have non-trivial amounts of protein. But it seems not. I'll need to check the protein in the different brands of non-dairy, non-soy milks next time I'm shopping for them. There were some actual nut 'flours' in the Whole Foods baking aisle, too. It might be worth checking the nutritional content on those.

The batter was too thick for the first pancake I made, but the way it puffed up makes me think it would do OK in the waffle iron, if I can get some flavor into it that isn't totally bland and boring.

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Egg Replacer

Posted at 10:08 am MDT to Technology

Yesterday at farmers' market was depressing: there is almost nothing in the food court that I should eat. Even the oriental dumplings have eggwhites and the tamales have butter.

I had teriyaki chicken with rice from the fusion booth for breakfast after we were set up. (Which had soy sauce, but the brewed soy products have less active phyto-estrogens than something like tofu does.)

I also bought a vegan cookie and brownie to take home (fortunately, Boulder is the kind of place that has a vegan bakery that shows up at the farmers' market) and a loaf of rosemary bread to nibble on for lunch.

But I'm hungry for protein and there are depressingly few prepared veggies that don't include eggs or dairy or both.

It's going to be a good thing my neighborhood grocery store is a Whole Foods. I stopped in the big Whole Foods in Boulder before I came home, bought some stuff and did some scouting.

Unlike Costco, they carry pitas and flour tortillas without anything I'm allergic to. They have a big selection of rice and almond milks, too. I got one of each to try. Vanilla flavored, not plain: I used to eat cheerios with vanilla soymilk and got used to the flavor combination. If one of them works, I will at least have something to have for breakfast -- toast with extra virgin olive oil just tastes wrong at that time of day, and I really want something besides plain carbs and tea.

The problem with both kinds of non-dairy milks is that they are meant for drinking, not as ingredients while my use of milk has for years been more as an ingredient than for drinking.

Their gluten-free aisle had two varieties of egg replacer. The store employee who showed me where they were said she found the one that is called for in most of the vegan baking recipes on-line has a baking soda aftertaste, and the ingredient list for it contains leavening agents which I think would throw off recipes, especially at this altitude. And it is recommended only for baking, probably because of the leavening agent.

The alternative product is from Orgran in Australia. The ingredients are just potato starch, tapioca flour, vegetable gum, methylcellulose, calcium carbonate and citric acid. And the recipes on the box (in several languages including Italian!) include lemon pie filling and batter for pan frying stuff. (Also a 'custard', but that needs milk.) This looked a lot more useful as a general binder, which is what I really wanted it for. I'm going to try making pancakes for brunch, since I need to toss the last couple of waffles from the last batch I made, and I want something to put maple syrup on.

I forgot to look for margarines (I was sort of flinching away from the dairy aisle) or lemons, but I can stop at my neighborhood Whole Foods on my way home from Nanette's this afternoon. I'm bringing her the dairy good from my fridge and freezer, and also the whiskey from my liquor cabinet because of the malt allergy.

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Fri, Jun 06, 2008

They're Mocking Me

Posted at 7:34 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Mocking me, I tell you. :-) Whenever I go to the refrigerator! 8 kinds of cheese, or more. Chicken-and-cheese sausages. Eggs. Butter. Yogurt. And all sorts of other stuff I'm not supposed to eat.

Even the salami has milk in it.

I think Nanette is going to get a cooler of dairy stuff this weekend (as well as the return of the dozen eggs I got from her last week). If only to make room in the fridge for stuff I can eat. Once I figure out what that is.

Non-perishables will go to Community Foodshare or something similar, but those are less urgent..

My red sauce tastes kind of flat without parmesan. Maybe I should add a tiny bit of hot sauce or red pepper flake.

I know I'm obsessing about food, but I'm in cheese withdrawal: going from an average of a few ounces a day to nothing I need to look up what other than dairy has calcium in it: I was in NO danger of calcium deficiency before now.

I asked for help on the Shadow Unit forum (where every discussion thread is about food eventually) and got some useful suggestions. Which help. And sympathy, which also helps.

I also asked inaurolilliumthe MadGastronomerthe Zombie Chef, who is a food industry professional and has a food advice column (the Ask Zombie Chef site).

(I think LiveJournal is paranoid about Zombies. They have Zombie Chef flagged for adult content for no reason that I can see.)

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Thu, Jun 05, 2008

Malt

Posted at 7:01 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

The full list of things I tested as being allergic to is

Cow's Milk
Whole eggs
Shellfish mix
Egg yolk (with a note from the doctor that I should avoid egg whites too)
Malt
String bean

Kentucky Blue Grass
Timothy
Ragweed Mix

I just got back from wandering through Costco, and those first five items on the list pretty well rule out everything they sell that I like to eat. (Especially since I'm also supposed to avoid soy as long as I'm on the Tamoxifen).

Most commercial baked goods contain malt, even if they don't have eggs or dairy (or soy), so it's a good thing I like doing my own baking.

I bought: Kosher Franks, Bush's Baked beans, Dried Mangoes, and Satsuma Mandarins from Peru (which is contrary to the buy local rule, but I need to have something edible in the house).

There is hope, however. I can probably plan to use egg white for special occasions like holiday baking. And I tested negative for egg-white, cow casein and cow lactalbumin, and I wasn't tested for goats' milk or sheeps' milk.

When I go back to the doctor next month I'm going to negotiate for narrowing the prohibitions. In particular, I'm going to ask to be tested for goats milk, and I'm going bring samples of a good aged Parmigiano Reggiano and an aged sheep's milk cheese (maybe a Pecorino Romano) and ask to have them tested specifically. Maybe I can find cheeses to use as ingredients even if I can't eat cheese itself any more. (Until yesterday I ate cheese every day. Make that, until today: I had cheese for lunch yesterday.)

I should probably be tested for chocolate and olives, too, though I don't know what I'm going to do if olives and extra-virgin olive oil get added to the forbidden list.

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Wed, Jun 04, 2008

Lent Forever

Posted at 6:45 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

I have some doubts about this allergy testing. It didn't seems to pick up things like peanuts that have a history of making my tongue swell up. The doctor gave me a prescription for an epipen, which is probably a good thing to have around in general, in case of those kinds of reactions. Or someone getting stung by a bee, I suppose.

Some of the things the test did pick up made sense, like grasses and ragweed.

It didn't pick up penicillin, which is kind of a relief (though also kind of moot, which I will get to). My vitamins and St. Johns Wort are OK, too.

Things I have been told to stay away from: shellfish, green beans (but peas and kidney beans are OK) and milk (including butter, yogurt, and cheese products) and eggs. So even though I turn out to not be officially allergic to penicillin molds, I can't try French cheeses.

I need to look up some recipes for meals for Lent. Giving up milk and eggs forever is going to be really hard: I love cheese. I pretty well live on cheese. Cheese is something I can swallow when nothing else wants to go down.

I suppose I won't need to worry about lactose intolerance.

Eggs are a little less of a problem: at least when I'm at home I don't use that many of them. Or I didn't use many eggs until I started baking pound cakes. I guess the pound cake I made for Nanette and Elsbeth is the last one. Maybe there are actual Lenten hot-cross bun recipes that don't use eggs or milk -- I like hot cross buns.

No eggs means no mayonnaise, so no potato or macaroni salads this summer. And Ranch dressing has egg and buttermilk.

I checked the label: the brand of pasta I'm using is 100% semolina, so I can eat it as long as I don't put on any cheese. I think that's going to be supper tonight.

No more risotto (damn, I'm glad I hadn't gotten around to making a batch this week). Maybe I can make something risotto-ish without the butter and cheese, just olive oil. Nonna's Bean Soup will be strange without the cheese and butter, too.

The homemade soft pretzel recipe has butter, but maybe I can substitute olive oil.

Holiday breads and cookies and stollens are going to be frustrating: I can make them, but I can't eat them because of the eggs. Maybe by then I will have figured out some alternatives.

No more boxed puddings (which I have a lot of in my cupboard): lemon calls for eggs and chocolate uses milk.

I have two Chocolove bars in the house "may contain traces of milk and nuts" but milk is not an actual ingredient, so I guess I can still eat them, but probably not buy any more.

Ghirardelli bittersweet morsels have milkfat. Darn. Not sure what I am going to do about those.

I should check whether the Mayan Cocoa from World Spice Merchants has milk powder in it. It may still be usable where a supermarket cocoa mix is not.

I wonder if the eggs and dairy thing is why I have never been fond of frosting?

And if I'm not technically allergic to lettuce, why does it always, ALWAYS give me heartburn?

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Mouser

Posted at 6:43 am MDT to Miscellaneous

Dinah caught a mouse at 4:30 am and insisted on discussing the fact at length. And when a siamese discusses something, you don't ignore it. Her "I am a mighty huntress" meow is distinctive. And loud.

She must have eaten the whole mouse, for a change. I didn't find any remains.

At least today will be a short workday: I've got the appointment with the allergist this afternoon.

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Mon, Jun 02, 2008

Earth-sized Extrasolar Planet Detected

Posted at 5:35 pm MDT to Current Events

According to Stein at the Dynamics of Cats Sci Blog, there has been a report at the AAS meeting of a small planet orbiting a very small star about 3000 light years from here. The reported probable size is 3.3 Earth masses (With a range of probable size from 1.7 Earth masses to 8.2. The gravtity lensing was pretty fuzzy.).

If someone had told me when I was taking astronomy classes back in college that we would be detecting Earth-sized planets 3000 lightyears away in my lifetime, I would have thought they were nuts.

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Powerlines -- the Saga Continues

Posted at 4:33 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Gaahh.

Friday I got a call from the electrical contractor company. From the boss. He wanted to know if they could come dig up my driveway today, with the expectation that Xcel would do their thing tomorrow and the hole would be filled back in Wednesday.

I was psyched. I thought I would finally get those stupid power lines done and then be able to get some other work done around the house and yard.

This morning I got a call from Art at the electrical contractor. He wasn't able to get the equipment delivered for this morning, and would I be home at 4 pm to sign for the equipment when it is delivered.

I said, "Fine. I'll be home and I can sign for it."

At 3 pm I got another call from Art. XCel has decided they can't do their thing until the 16th. Which means the trench is now scheduled to be dug on the 13th (Friday the Thirteenth) and my driveway will be unusable over the weekend.

Xcel keeps contacting me, wanting me to let them install a gadget that lets them control my AC remotely on the hottest days in return for a $25 dollar per year credit. Considering that as far as I know they still after 9 years don't have location of my house in their records correctly, and they seem to be incapable of scheduling and finishing a job where their part should only take a couple of hours, there is NO way I am letting them any closer to my equipment than I have to. Give them control. I think not. Bozos.

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Sun, Jun 01, 2008

Guests

Posted at 10:08 pm MDT to Miscellaneous

Nanette and her youngest daughter Elsbeth came over to watch Stonehenge Decoded on the National Geographic channel. This was the first time I have had guests in a couple of years (since December 2005, I think) and in general the evening went very well.

The satellite image broke up a couple of times, which was annoying, but the narration stayed clear. The only other annoyance was the show referred you to their web site for the production credits (which should include Nanette's daughter Aleta) and I cannot find the credits anywhere on the site.

It was nice to have guests for a change (usually I go over to Nanette's.)

I baked a classic pound cake in my new bundt pan, and it came out very well (which was a relief) except that the recipe was a little too big for the pan. (I think next time I will make a 3/4 pound cake.) I sent sections of cake home with Nanette and Elsbeth, so I won't be eating all of it myself.

I seem to have become a reliable baker of poundcake, in addition to breads and cookies. Maybe one of these years I will actually get pie-crusts down.

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Shadow Unit Season 1 Finale -- Aftermath

Posted at 5:55 am MDT to Media

Man, do I need a vacation!

I awoke very early this morning out of an anxiety dream that I am sure was triggered by the Shadow Unit finale, which was amazing and shattering. But the context of the dream was someone doing something stupid and annoying in ClearCase, the software tool I work with in my day job.

Eight more weeks on this contract.

Sigh.

I don't think I've had a real vacation since the Geek Cruise I took in October 2004 -- benchtime between contracts doesn't really count. Neither does recuperation time after surgery, which covers a trip to Santa Fe with Nanette and her husband in June 2005, and Which is still 3 years ago.

No wonder I'm so burned out.

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