P I C N I C

I love jargon. While wiring my fan I noticed that the box bolted to the outside of the fan is called a ‘circuit-lock® manual motor controller’. This box contains a switch, and nothing else!

Kate and I watched Jamie Olivers new reality TV show tonight. The first two episodes show his experience dealing with the school lunch scene. Nutritional absurdities, breakfast pizza, beurocratic nightmares. It’s all so familiar from when I was cooking at Abernethy.

I’ve been watching episodes of Julia Child every now and then as well.

I tended to the bees for the first time since they flew in last summer. The colony is strong and lots of bees flew out as I opened it up. I added the first super, which is for gathering the honey. A queen restrictor was also added between the super and the deeps.

Emily Scroggs, an anthropology student at Lewis and Clark, interviewed me about my food cart this evening. She’s already talked to the owners of Savor. In Oakland, which is where she’s from, she says that food carts do not really exist.

At Pastaworks today, Dave the butcher was telling me about a dish he had at 3 Doors Down, called ‘the crouton.’ It’s a thick slice of ciabatta sauteed in olive oil, covered with a mushroom/sherry/cream sauce.

After doing some analysis with my espresso machine, measuring out exact amounts of espresso, taking temperature readings of the water, weighing the espresso as it flowed out, I was able to answer, hesitantly, a question Joel put to me. Does the espresso come out quicker or slower at a higher temperature? It comes out slower at a higher temperature, I have observed. His Ethiopian is also very tasty.

I picked up a Japanese on demand water heater today. Installation will be difficult.