Traveling Notes

Some random tips garnered from my travels:

• If you have one of those hiker's headlamps, pack it in your carry-on! They are invaluable on overnight flights when they flight attendants turn down the lights and occasionally while poking through an unfamiliar room late at night.
• Wash clothes are rare in some parts. (Italy in particular...) Pack your own in a ziplock bag.
• Field Notes journals are great for scribbling notes, phone numbers, addresses and hours, recipes--just about anything. I find one 48 page note is good for a few weeks.
• The Italian Mosquito, well that's an entire post unto itself.

As always, your mileage may vary...

Hot Chocolate

Without a doubt the best memory of my grandma is coming in late at night around the holidays after a long trip from somewhere. We always seemed to be coming from far away. Didn't matter how late, though. She'd put a pot of milk on the (cast iron coal burning) stove, pull down the sugar canister and the Hershey's cocoa and make the very best hot chocolate that I've ever had. I don't remember the exact details but I make a pretty good cup myself.

Of course, I have to use fancy chocolate and all that, because I don't have that grandma magic...

My recipe:

• Coal burning cast iron stove (optional, but you'll need your own magic)
• One cup whole milk. (c'mon, don't fool around here...)
• 2 tblsp sugar
• 4 tblsp Ghiardelli cocoa
• 1 tsp vanilla

Put the milk on the stove on medium heat, then add the sugar and the cocoa. Whisk vigorously to dissolve the cocoa and keep it from sticking to the sides. You can take a short break from this to fill your mug with hot tap water. Once the hot cocoa has reached the desired temperature, cut the heat, dump the tap water and then add the vanilla to the mug. Pour the hot cocoa into the mug, give it a quick whisk and enjoy.

If I have some in the fridge, I'll often pour a "shot" of half and half or heavy cream in with the milk. Another common variation is the addition of a 1/8 to 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper.

Give it a whirl and then you can play with substitutions, like all half and half instead of the milk, more or less cocoa, etc.

Santa's Checkride

[This story has probably been around longer than I'm alive. I did do a little editing, but it's certainly not original. Wish I knew exactly who to credit.]

Pilots have to be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, which initially involves a lot of school and practice and--finally--a ride with an examiner who distracts the potential pilot with a lot of questions while they're flying. The examiner also makes the pilot do things like induce a stall and then get out of it. Pretty much anything the examiner wants to test is fair game. He could, if he wanted, just reach over and turn off the engine. Once a pilot has his/her certificate, they get to be reexamined every so often.

Santa Claus, like all pilots, gets regular visits from the Federal Aviation Administration, and it was shortly before Christmas when the FAA examiner was scheduled to arrive. In preparation, Santa had the elves wash the sled and bathe all the reindeer. Santa got his logbook out and made sure all his paperwork was in order.

The examiner arrived. He walked around the sled slowly, paying attention to every detail. He carefully checked the reindeer harnesses, the landing gear, and Rudolf's nose. He painstakingly reviewed Santa's weight and balance calculations for sled's enormous payload.

Finally, they were ready for the checkride.

Santa got in and fastened his seatbelt and shoulder harness and checked the compass. Then the examiner hopped in carrying, to Santa's surprise, a shotgun. Santa's brow furrowed and he turned his head askew.

"What's that for?"

The examiner winked.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you're gonna lose an engine on takeoff."

Donuts and Pickled Beets

Back in 1984, I worked with this Swedish expatriate who drove a shiny new Cadillac. If you asked him, Sven would tell you that one thing he loved about America was the big honkin' cars. Then he'd offer you a donut, because he always picked up a box for the group on his way in.

It was kind of funny preference for cars, because Sven was barely five foot, barrel shaped and balding with a pasty complexion. Being from Sweden, he'd only own something with rear wheel drive.

"Safer," he'd tell you. "If you break the wheels free that move the

car, you can still steer."

I took the bus to work on a wicked snow day. The place was quiet as a mouse, so I thought I was alone. But when I checked on some equipment in a back room that overlooked the parking lot, I had to smile.

There were only two tire tracks coming in the entrance, but it looked like 20 crazy teenagers had been out there doing donuts. Out of all that were two tire tracks that led right up to Sven's Caddy.

I wandered back to where Sven sat and waited until he looked up.

"Nice donuts," I said.

His whole head turned red as pickled beets.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

This can be read:

Integral zee-squared dee-zee
from one to the cube root of three
times the cosine
of three pie over nine
equals log of the cube root of ‘e’.

Credit for this has to go to Betsy Devine and Joel E. Cohen’s book “Absolute Zero Gravity”. (Simon and Schuster, 1992) page 37. But I found it, along with some other really bad math limericks, at http://www.trottermath.net/humor/limricks.html.

Number 20 is good if you like riddles...

Life is Uncertain...

Make dessert first. First off, credit for this recipe goes to Danila. Wander back to wine picks and you can see Danila... You'll need a scale that can measure accurately to a gram for this recipe. A food processor helps tremendously.

400g AP flour

150g sugar

1/2 tsp "lievito per torte"*

The zest of one lemon.

200g unsalted butter.

1 egg + 1 yolk

13oz jar of your favorite preserves.

Measure out the flour and sugar and "lievito" directly into the food processor. Zest the lemon directly into the food processor. Give them a spin to combine.

Cube the butter and add it in, then use the food processor to cut it into mix. Here's a hint. 200g is roughly two sticks. I often reserve a tablespoon from one stick to lube the tart pan, and just cube the rest unmeasured.

Add the eggs and process them in as well. Sometimes it looks a little dry, but keep going. It will come together, usually caking up along the wall of the processor. Sometimes I knock the side of the FP with my hand to help it churn. If after a minute or so it still seems dry, toss in another yolk.

Once it comes together somewhat, dump it back into the bowl you used to measure the flour, form a dough ball and cover with a wet paper towel and set it in the fridge for 30+ minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, approximately 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lube the tart pan liberally. Take the dough out of the fridge and  reserve a baseball sized chunk. Press the remaining dough into your tart pan by hand. No rolling required. You want a nice rim around the outside and a nice "bowl" to pour the preserves into. Speaking of which, pour them in.

Press or roll the remaining dough out on a sheet of parchment paper. Cut cookie shapes out and place them on top of the crostata. You can also roll little dough balls in your hand and press them into coin sized shapes to fill in some gaps. Heat a little water and honey in the micrwave and brush onto the cookie shapes and pie crust. Sprinkle with some coarse sugar. You can also just roll out strips and create a lattice.

Bake for 30-40 minutes.

* About that "lievito". It's an optional ingredient. I think it's basically baking soda and some vanilla flavoring, so you could just go with a 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 1/2 tsp of vanilla in the mix. Haven't tried that, but we have omitted the ingredient without trouble. I've included a picture of a small packet. I get two sometimes three crostate out of that. Check out your local Italian grocer. They'll probably have that or something similar.

Make sure you don't get the pizza yeast. This leavening is not yeast!

I've done this without a food porocessor. Proceed like cookie dough: Whisk the dry ingredients to combine, cream the sugar and butter, add eggs and zest, combine, then mix in the dry. In fact, I've probably botched every step of this process at one time or another. It doesn't seem to matter. Just keep churning with that food processor and it will all work out in the end.

Thanks for sharing, Danila!