Category: Coolness

Framed Again!

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I feel as though I use this blog these days for nothing more than cataloging and showing off the stuff that I make…

I’m ok with that.

So, to carry on with that theme, here are the two latest pieces I have framed. They are two of the several Discworld maps that have been made available through the years, and they are two of the first items on the ever growing list of things I was going to frame once I had the tools to do so, and walls to hang them on. They are also two of the larger pieces I had as well, making them more of a challenge. They pretty much fill an entire wall.

Since the maps were designed to look old, and old-world, I wanted to make some very old-world frames. Something a little darker, wider and more ornate than usual. Both prints were also almost too large to get mat-board for, but I eventually made it work. I apologize now for the reflections in the glass on these photos, but no amount of lighting tricks I know — natural or artificial — were going to avoid that.

The first print is the Streets of Ankh-Morpork, and is my favorite of the two. It’s a nicely detailed layout of the city on the Discworld most frequently used as a setting. It’s practically a character in and of itself. I adore the aging parchment look, and all the embellishments around the border.

The second map is of the Discworld itself.

Framed, You Hear!

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Since I’ve been regathering woodworking tools lost to Katrina, I’ve been able to get a start on what is likely to be a very ongoing project… picture frames. Sweets and I have been slowly gathering prints and posters and artwork over the last few years (with no apparent end in sight), and for the smaller ones that fall into a standard size frame that can be bought “off the shelf”, we’re doing just that. Anything larger, or oddly sized — and the majority of what we have falls into this category — requires a custom frame.

The few pieces I’ve had framed in the past, while being done well, are fairly expensive… especially considering our tastes and preferences. At this rate, we’d likely only get one or two pieces done a year and we’d never catch up. Even the cost of just getting a mat cut is stupidly out of proportion considering a typical full-size sheet of acid-free mat board costs ~$15 for a 32″x40″ sheet and it takes all of 15 minutes to cut it. Add to this the fact that you’re limited to the frame styles the shop has in stock — to be fair, while not a minuscule selection they do tend toward a variation on a small number of themes. Additionally, if I wanted something more stylized or thematic I’m pretty much out of luck. The materials the frames are made of is rarely ever solid wood (composite materials mostly), and far too many of them are hideously garish.

So, I decided to do my own framing… quite in the tradition of my grandfather who framed all of his own artwork. I have a full-size mat cutter, I have the tools at my disposal to cut, fit and assemble frames, I have the skills and know-how, and I can do it all for a fraction of the cost that a frame shop would charge me. This also affords me the opportunity to do many more pieces in a shorter span of time and not break my budget. I can also get faaaaancy.

Two recent pieces that I finished were prints by Terrance Osborne: Post Katrina Blues, and Hurricane Solution #3. Both purchased over two years during my annual pilgrimages back to the motherland. I wanted to do something special for these, but hadn’t any specific ideas.

While foraging around the local architectural salvage companies for materials for another framing project (that’s another post) I came across an old wooden white painted window screen. I mean old, and poorly repainted over the years — never scraped, so the scaly ‘gator skinned peeling paint from previous generations created a prominent texture, and of an old hand-made style not seen any more. I was instantly transported back to NOLA, and the ancient white houses with the hunter green trim that is still found in older neighborhoods today (I lived in one myself), painted and repainted over the years. This screen was worn, weather-beaten and a perfect representation of a home — both physical and spiritual — lost to tragedy. It was mine for all of $4.

I disassembled that screen, carefully so as to not dislodge too much of the flaking paint, and lovingly cut and assembled it into a frame. I lightly dusted the worst of the dirt from it and sealed the rest in with satin Polycrylic. I paired the frame with a hunter green mat, the entire assembly representative of the loss depicted in Post Katrina Blues. The funky weathered appearance may not be for everyone, but it strikes me profoundly. You can even see a white house with green trim to the right in the print.

The next frame is another find from my architectural salvage hunts. It’s pieces of chair-rail moulding, reclaimed from an old house that was obviously decked out in quite a bit of fancy millwork when it was built (the pieces I used came from a huge bundle apparently from the same salvage project). The moulding was painted with a high-gloss white oil paint originally — those old oil paints just had a way of sitting on wood that is unmistakable — but the paint had lost some of it’s luster and has faded to a slightly ivory off-white color over the years. At $1 per linear foot, I had more than I needed for a measly $25.

The trim was in fairly good shape (compared to the screen from the last frame) with just a few chips and scrapes in the finish to show its age. It reminded me of the loving restoration that is done in the very old houses in NOLA, where the original millwork, filigrees and fancy flourishes are painstakingly preserved, showing the wear of the years but still holding up — mostly — the the test of time. It spoke to me of hope, history, and carrying on even in the wake of destruction. That fancy, scrolly moulding was cut and assembled into a frame, and left as-is with no additional finish… warts and all. Paired with a goldenrod colored mat, it evokes the stubbornness, ingenuity and spirit of preservation in Hurricane Solution #3.

My intention hasn’t been to salvage materials for all of my frames, that style just happened to fit the prints I was working on. Going forward… who knows what I’ll be using, but I have the freedom and flexibility to do what I like. Just you try to get a frame shop to make one from an old window screen. *grins*

Crawfish Table Number Deux.

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In 1994 my brothers an I designed and built a crawfish table (well… adapted a picnic table design, to be honest) — a table made for the intent of standing at and eating crawfish.  Once a pot of bugs was done boiling, it was hoisted up and dumped out onto the table, an inner and outer rail keeping them corralled onto the table-top. Folks bellied up to the table and ate their fill without the need to grab a pile and go find somewhere else to settle in.  While eating, the shells were pitched through a hole in the center directly into a garbage can, rather than making a pile of them to be dealt with later.

Like all of the outdoor furniture we built, it was a heavy, solid, sturdy, beastly monstrosity — anything worth building, was worth overbuilding. Made from pressure treated 2x lumber, it would withstand the elements and insects. It was coated with more than five layers of outdoor polyurethane to help protect it from the crawfish, and us from the chemicals used to treat the wood. Our little furniture “company” was known as Hurricane Furniture (prophetic, I know!), on the premise that come a hurricane or tornado, you should abandon your home and seatbelt yourself into our outdoor furniture — you’d be safer (“tornadoes just bounce right off of our shit”).  It was branded with our signature logo — literally branded — burnt right into the wood.

This table saw eleven years of life in the sun, rain, heat, humidity and cold. Eleven crawfish seasons this table was put to use, occasionally hauled from house to house as needed. It stood the test of time. It was damn near indestructible.

Damn near.

It didn’t give up without a fight.  Oh no. When I evacuated for Katrina, I put it in front of my garage door to ensure the wind wouldn’t blow it open. It was a silent sentinel, a guardian of my tools. The storm hit and I was the lucky recipient of 9′ of water on my street. That foul, acidic water didn’t recede for more than a week, and the table was beneath it the whole time. Upon my return I found it, just about where I left it in front of my garage door and still holding it closed, only it had tipped over onto it’s side and turned 90 degrees. It was still intact, but the table-top had warped and twisted and it was fouled with dirt, the borderline bulletproof polyurethane coating eroding away from the wood. Sadly, the table was ruined beyond future use.

After the storm I moved to Austin, carting my meager surviving possessions with me. Among them was my crawfish boiling pot and burner… they were in the garage attic, and had survived high and dry. I vowed to return to my duties as boil-master some day, but unfortunately that was hard to do in an apartment.

It took a few years, but eventually I got back into the groove — there are live crawfish to be had in Austin, the best ones being trucked in from Lake Charles for pickup on Saturdays during the season. I host a boil a year now, and generally act as boil-master for at least one other hosted by friends, sometimes two. I missed it, dearly. It’s a lot of work, but it’s in my very bones. It calls to me. It reminds me of home, family, and good times. It allows me to make more good times, and carry on healing bits and pieces of my soul.

But, there has been a big, overbuilt table-shaped hole these last seven years. The absence of the crawfish table has not gone unnoticed, or unlamented. I’ve had a yard of my own for it to live in for many years, but hadn’t had the opportunity to build a new table.

Until now.

I knuckled down, and made a new one this year. It took a little digging to find the original designs I had, and some CSI-like action — oh yes, I was a clever motherfucker, for the original designs were done in CorelDraw v3, and nothing opens those any more, not even CorelDraw. Using a hex editor I was able to extract the shopping list and some basic notes I had jotted down. I was also able to see the postage-stamp sized preview to determine that I used five boards for the table-top, giving me the overall dimensions — 3’x5”.

I redesigned the table digitally (in a format that is more universal and likely to stand the test of time). I kept the same basic design and expanded the table-top to 4’x6′. I tweaked the height a bit. I also changed the way the inside rail fastens to the table — from pegs in holes, to a routed recessed area. I’ve also added a removable second tier table made of PVC that can be used to put drinks, paper towels, etc, replacing the paper towel rods drilled into the outside rail, and the car-window drink holders as well.

All the while I was cutting and assembling the lumber, my brain kept whiplashing back to 1994, and building the original table with my brothers. It made me smile for the connection to the past and to my family, and a little melancholy to think of the distance between us now, both physical and emotional — one more thing to thank Katrina for. All the while I was sitting underneath the giant wooden hulk, brushing on polyurethane, I was reminded of how much I despised getting that lovely crick in my neck the last time, and how much — after five days — I was getting damned tired of the smell of it.

But most of all, through all of the table construction, the thoughts looming largest in my mind were: I hope I do this justice, I hope this lives up to what we had created before… I hope I do my brothers proud.

They taught me well, those knuckleheads did. We didn’t always get along, and we never quite knew how to show healthy affection for one another other than through incessant teasing and verbal sparring, but they knew how to create, and they passed that on to me. When there was sawdust in the air, all was right with the world.

Here are the fruits of my labors, and I can’t wait to put it to the test in a few weeks time. I was even sent our brand so that I could properly mark anything I build, proclaiming it properly built in the finest tradition of Hurricane Furniture.

And here are three of the jackasses that helped make me the jackass that I am today. Love you all.

The Texas Baker’s Bill… Last Gasp!

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After fearing the Cottage Food Bill was dead in the House, turns out it’s still gasping for air!  It has actually passed the House, and is in the Senate as bill # SB 81, and has apparently gone round and round a few times already for amendments.  The unfortunate part is that we have less than a week for the Senate to pass it, or the legislative session will end and it’ll really be dead, not to be brought up again for another 2 years.

So, as before, I’m practically begging everyone to call and/or email your Senator and ask that they support SB 81 — specifically supporting it “as is” with the current crop of amendments, as there is little to no time to make any more.  The passing of this bill is the best chance for Sweets to get a legal baking business off the ground without having to scrape up  thousands of dollars in additional fees.  If you would like to help, I ask that you do so very, very soon.

Find out who your Senator is HERE.  More info on the progress of the bill is HERE.

Café à la Créole.

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Having followed one link to another, then another (as one so often does while surfing — this time while reading up on the first episode of Treme season 2),  I stumbled upon The Picayune’s Creole Cook Book.  Published in 1901, by the local New Orleans newspaper The Picayune — which would eventually become the Times Picayune — it is a moment in time captured in amber, one that some might even consider quaint, and makes me a little homesick just reading it.  The book was reprinted a multitude of times from 1901 to 1922, then picked up by a different publisher then put into print again in 1971, and again in 2002, as an “unabridged republication”, which basically means it’s a step up from a photocopy of the original 1901 book.  I think I need to have a copy in my library (even though it is available online for free as the copyright has long since expired and it has become part of the public domain).

The book opens with a manifesto on coffee, specifically Café à la Créole (um… Creole Coffee), and won my little obsessive-compulsive, devil in the details, coffee-loving heart in an instant.   Here is the first chapter in all its coffee-worshiping glory, reformatted for ease of reading.

——————————-

CHAPTER 1

CREOLE COFFEE

Café à la Créole

A good cup of Creole Coffee!

Is there anything in the whole range of food substances to be compared with it?  And is there any city in the world where coffee is so delightfully concocted as in New Orleans?  Travelers the world over unite in praise of Creole Coffee, or “Café à la Créole,” as they are fond of putting it.  The Creole cuisiniéres succeeded far beyond even the famous chefs of France in discovering the secret of good coffee-making, and they have never yielded the palm of victory.  There is no place in the world in which the use of coffee is more general than in the old Creole city of New Orleans, where, from the famous French Market, with its world-renowned coffee stands, to the olden homes on the Bayou St. John, from Lake Pontchatrain to the verge of Southport.  The cup of “Café Noir,” or “Café au Lait,” at morning, at noon and at night, has become a necessary and delightful part of the life of the people, and the wonder and the joy of visitors.

The morning cup of Café Noir is an integral part of the life of a Creole household.  The Creoles hold as a physiological fact that this custom contributes to longevity, and point, day after day, to examples of old men and women of fourscore, and over, who attest to the powerful aid they have received through life from a good, fragrant cup of coffee in the early morning.  The ancient residents hold, too, that, after a hearty meal, a cup of “Café Noir,” or black coffee, will relieve the sense of oppression so apt to he experienced, and enables the stomach to perform its functions with greater facility.  Café Noir is known, too, as one of the best preventives of infectious diseases, and the ancient Creole physicians never used any other deodorizer than passing a chafing dish with burning grains of coffee through the room.  As an antidote for poison, the uses of coffee are too well known to be dilated upon.

Coffee is also the greatest brain food and stimulant known.  Men of science, poets and scholars and journalists, have testified to its beneficial effects.  Coffee supported the old age of Voltaire, and enabled Fountenelle to reach his one hundredth birthday.  Charles Gayarre, the illustrious Louisiana historian, at the advanced age of eighty, paid tribute to the Créole cup of “Café Noir.”  Among advanced scientists it is rapidly taking the place of digitalis in the treatment of certain cardiac affections, and the basis of black coffee, “caffeine,” enters largely into medicinal compositions.  Coffee is now classed by physicians as an auxiliary food substance, as retarding the waste of nerve tissue and acting with peculiarly strengthening effect upon the nervous and vascular system.

How important, then, is the art of making good coffee, entering, as it does, so largely into the daily life of the American people. There is no reason why the secret should be confined to any section or city; but, with a little care and attention, every household in the land may enjoy its morning or after-dinner cup of coffee with as much real pleasure as the Creoles of New Orleans and the thousands of visitors who yearly migrate to this old Franco-Spanish city.

It is, therefore, with pardonable pride that the Picayune begins this Creole Cook Book by introducing its readers into a typical Creole kitchen, where “Tante Zoé,” in the early morning hour, in her quaint, guinea-blue dress and bandana “tignon,“ is carefully concocting the morning cup of…

CAFÉ NOIR.

And first she will tell you, this old Créole Négresse, as she busies herself parching to a beautiful brown the morning portion of green coffee, that the secret of good coffee lies in harvesting…

The Best Ingredients and in the Proper making.

By the best ingredients, she means those delightful coffees grown on well watered mountain slopes, such as the famous Java and Mocha coffees.  It must be of the best quality, the Mocha and Java mixed producing a concoction of a most delightful aroma and stimulating effect.  She will tell you, too, that one of the first essentials is to “Parch the Coffee Grains Just Before Making the Coffee,” because coffee that has been long parched and left standing loses its flavor and strength.  The coffee grains should “Be Roasted to a Rich Brown,” and never allowed to scorch or burn, otherwise the flavor of the coffee is at once affected or destroyed.  Good coffee should never he boiled.  Bear this in mind, that the GOOD CREOLE COOK NEVER BOILS COFFEE; but insists on dripping it, in a covered strainer, slowly, slowly-DRIP, DRIP, DRIP – till all the flavor is extracted.

To reach this desired end, immediately after the coffee has been roasted and allowed to cool in a covered dish, so that none of the flavor will escape, the coffee is ground – neither too fine, for that will make the coffee dreggy; nor too coarse, for that prevents the escape of the full strength of the coffee juice – but a careful medium proportion, which will not allow the hot water pouring to run rapidly through, but which will admit of the water percolating slowly through and through the grounds, extracting every bit of the strength and aroma, and falling steadily with “a drip! drip!”into the coffee pot.

To make good coffee, the water must be “freshly boiled,” and must never be poured upon the grounds until it has reached the good boiling point, otherwise the flavor is destroyed, and subsequent pourings of boiling water can never quite succeed in extracting the superb strength and aroma which distinguish the good cup of coffee.

It is of the greatest importance that “The Coffee Pot Be Kept Perfectly Clean,” and the good cook will bear in mind that absolute cleanliness is as necessary for the “interior” of the coffee pot as for the shining “exterior.”  This fact is one too commonly overlooked, and yet the coffee pot requires more than ordinary care, for the reason that the chemical action of the coffee upon the tin or agate tends to create a substance which collects and clings to every crevice and seam, and, naturally, in the course of time will affect the flavor of the coffee most peculiarly and unpleasantly.  Very often the fact that the coffee tastes bitter or muddy arises from this fact.  The “inside” of the coffee pot should, therefore, be washed as carefully “every day” as the outside.

Having observed these conditions, proceed to make the coffee according to the following unfailing…

Creole Rule.

Have the water heated to a good boil.  Set the coffee pot in front of the stove; never on top, as the coffee will boil, and then the taste is destroyed.

Allow one cup, or the ordinary mill, of coffee to make four good cups of the liquid, ground and put in the strainer, being careful to keep both the strainer and the spout of the coffee pot covered, to prevent the flavor from escaping.  Pour, first, about two tablespoonfuls of the boiling water on the coffee grounds, or, according to the quantity of coffee used, just sufficient to settle the grounds.  Walt about five minutes; then pour a little more water, and allow it to drip slowly through, but never pour water the second time until the grounds have ceased to puff or bubble, as this is an indication that the grounds have settled.  Keep pouring slowly, at intervals, a little boiling water at a time, until the delightful aroma of the coffee begins to escape from the closed spout of the coffee pot.  If the coffee dyes the cup, it is a little too strong; but do not go far beyond this, or the coffee will be too weak.  When you have produced a rich, fragrant concoction, whose delightful aroma, filling the room, is a constant, tempting invitation to taste it, serve in fine china cups, using in preference loaf sugar for sweetening.  You have then a real cup of the famous Creole Café Noir, so extensively used at morning dawn, at breakfast, and as the “after-dinner cup.”

If the coffee appears muddy, or not clear, some of the old Creoles drop a piece of charcoal an inch thick into the water, which settles it and at once makes it clear. Demonstrations prove that strength remains in the coffee grounds.  A matter of economy in making coffee is to save the grounds from the meal or day before, and boil these in a half gallon of water.  Settle the grounds by dropping two or three drops of cold water in, and pour the water over the fresh grounds.  This is a suggestion that rich and poor might heed with profit.

CAFE AU LAIT.

Proceed in the same manner as in the making of “Café Noir,” allowing the usual quantity of boiling water to the amount of coffee used.  When made, pour the coffee into delicate china cups, allowing a half cup of coffee to each cup.  Serve, at the same time, a small pitcher of very sweet and fresh cream, allowing a half cup of cream to a half cup of coffee.  The milk should always be boiled, and the cream very hot.  If the cream is not fresh and sweet, it will curdle the coffee, by reason of the heat.  Café au Lait is a great breakfast drink in New Orleans, while Café Noir is more generally the early morning and the afternoon drink.

Having thus bid its readers “Good morning,” and drank with them a cup of Café Noir, the Picayune will proceed to discuss Creole Cookery in all its forms, from soup “à la Créole” to “pacandes amandes” and “pralines.”

A Call To Arms! The Texas Baker’s Bill.

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Yeah, I know, I’m likely to catch hell from you guys for this… but it’s worth it if it helps at all.

I spammed y’all in 2009 about this, but it’s come full circle again in 2011 – the Texas Cottage Food Law.  Currently it’s illegal in Texas for the operation of a food-based business from a residential kitchen, even if it’s “non-potentially hazardous” foods that are at a low risk for spoilage, specifically bakery products and some other foods — jams, jellies, and salsas — that are considered low-risk for spoilage because they are not able to support the growth of potentially harmful organisms and do not require refrigeration.  This makes it prohibitively expensive and complex to start up a small bakery business. The passing of this bill would allow, with appropriate licensing, home-based bakery style businesses.

Most anyone reading this post knows a married couple in Texas that have been trying to quietly drum up business while flying below the radar for some time now.  They can’t really advertise, as that would call unwanted attention to them, so it’s all word of mouth.  They can’t approach places like coffee houses or other little retail establishments to get them to buy their goods, can’t get a stall at a farmer’s market, etc.  Which means that growth is negligible.  If the Cottage Food Law passes, They could (as early as September) get started making a lot of noise and picking up some business.

What does this mean to everyone?  Well, to get the bill passed, those of you living in Texas have to let legislators know that they want them to support it, and to do that folks need to call and/or write them.  There is a site out there with info on the bill, and what to do/how to help.

Texas Cottage Food Law (they’re on Facebook too).

Those good folks are even providing a letter template, the best way to conduct yourself on the call, along with how to find who your local legislators are.

Even if you don’t intend to actually call or write (and I heartily encourage you to do so!), maybe you could pass the information along – email, Facebook, Twitter (there is a hashtag group on twitter — #texasbakersbill — so follow/use that if you go that route), etc.  The more people who know about it, the greater the percentage of people who will call/write.  C’mon, this is the modern age, and social networking rules the land… there’s no reason this information can’t be spread far and wide in relatively no time at all.

The passing of this bill will allow individuals and small groups of home bakers to generate some revenue in this otherwise tepid economical landscape.  That revenue is subject to local sales tax (more money for the Texas state coffers!), income tax (moolah for the Feds!), and spending cash in the pockets of the bakers themselves to help stimulate the local economy.  It would help build small businesses that may one day flourish into larger enterprises, creating even more jobs and revenue along the way. It would allow individuals to ply a trade they truly enjoy, flexing their creative culinary skills, making for a happier person.

I can’t speak for the rest of Texas, but Austin is fiercely proud of it’s reputation for locally owned and operated businesses and the eclectic atmosphere that comes when the majority of the shops are run by individuals and not mega-corporations and chains.  Think of the vast variety of tastes and styles, ethnic and cultural confections that only ever get served up at the family table… then imagine those miraculously being available in farmer’s markets and little stalls and shops around town, all across the State.

It was once stated (quite sadly by a member of the committee with her hands on the bill in 2009 — her name rhymes with “Lois W. Kolkhorst“) that home baking businesses were “the worst kept secret” in Texas, and it was asked why there was need for a law to make it legal?  Go ahead and read this post from the beginning again, I think I’ve covered that quite nicely already.  Seriously, who would oppose passing a law to let people come out of hiding, become legitimate, start paying taxes and earning income above board?  These legislators have other agendas… they simply must.

The bill has been filed with the Texas House of Representatives — HB1139 — here’s the text of it.  The next step is for it to get assigned to a committee, then read before that committee (which, by the way, is open to the public… so why not show up in support of it?).  Then it goes up for a vote, and if that works out well it gets passed to the Texas Senate to be voted on.

So, Texans (and family of Texans who can poke their kin with a sharp stick for us), we need to be BIG and LOUD about this.  This needs to be more than just a fart in a hurricane.  Put it on the radar of your legislators.  Make yourself heard, dammit!

Curious Brew Too.

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This week continues my month-long series on homebrewing over at Curious Confections. This week I dive right in and get into the nitty-gritty of brewing some actual beer.  It’s a long post, so get a bowl of popcorn and fermented beverage of your choice and sit back and relax while reading.

Also, a few other pints… er, points of interest.  Sweets and I celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary this weekend.  Time has zoomed by so fast.  Love you so much, my sweet girl!

We celebrated with dinner at North by Northwest, a local restaurant and brewery here in Austin. The food was wonderful, and the beer (all brewed in-house, obviously) was outstanding… truly top notch.  Of note specifically was their Duckabish Amber (as per NXNW: “Pilsner, Caravienne, and Chocolate malts give this beer its beautiful, deep amber color.  It is soft and creamy and balanced by Horizon hops.”) and their BlackJack, which is their Okanogan Black Ale aged in oak barrels (smooth, rich, and malty with a fantastic oak finish that stayed on the tongue for minutes after each sip).  I took home a growler of the Duckabish.

We will be going back.  These people deserve support.  *grins*

Curious Brew.

DmentD

For those of you not following the blog over at Curious Confections on a regular basis (Sweets and I are food-blogging three times a week… OK, mostly Sweets), or not following Curious Confections, Sweets or me on Twitter (and if you follow all three of us, I’d like to say I’m sorry about you getting triple tweets about new posts on CC… but I’m not.  It’s promotion for building a business), then you may be interested to know that every Monday in May I’m posting about homebrewing.

After an introduction to the concept, I’m going to go through the basic steps involved in the subsequent weeks.  The first post is up now.

You know, just in case you’re interested.