Photography: Misty Spring Mornings

One of the things that we like about living in the Northeast compared to California (and there aren't that many...) is that you actually get to experience all four seasons rather than just slightly drier or wetter variations of the same weather every day.  Autumn is probably my favorite season, but spring is a nice change coming out of the cold, dark winter.  Unfortunately, at least in New Jersey, it does feel like spring gets short changed.  Real spring only seems to last for a few weeks before we head full on into summer.  Usually the seasons is punctuated by heavy rain before the summer heat rolls in.

Although it only lasts for a short while, one of my favorite things about spring is the fog that forms in the morning before the sun has had a chance to warm the air.  It makes everything, even the morning commute, feel a little more mysterious and ethereal.  It makes you wonder just what's around the corner.  Early one morning, I decided to stop at a park on the way to work to just sit quietly in the fog for a while.

Getting ready for summer

Photography: Ice Days

We got hit with the remnants of the Snowpocalypse that hit the Midwest this week.  However, instead of blanketing us with snow, the temperatures had risen enough that we got coated with ice.  The forecast predicted the risk of severe to catastrophic ice overnight, with the risk of trees and powerlines falling over from the weight of the ice.

In the end, though, it didn't turn out to be that bad, and definitely not catastrophic.  In the early morning, everything was enrobed in a sheath of ice.  However, by mid-morning, the temperature was almost in the 40s (a heat wave!) and most of the ice had already melted away.  I had to drive down to Pennsylvania for a business meeting and it wasn't too bad at all.  In fact, driving was better than most days since most people were off the road.  The biggest danger was from ice falling from tree branches overhead and from lazy people who didn't scrape all the ice off their car---flying down the highway, big sheets of ice would fly off the roof of their car, so you had to keep a pretty safe distance.

We're not out of the woods yet.  We're supposed to get hit with some more nasty weather this weekend and again the middle of next week.  Apparently Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow on Groundhog's Day, so spring is near, although I'm a little skeptical.  This winter feels more like the other Groundhog's Day to me...

Photography: Snow Days

As a I mentioned before, we had a big snowstorm this week and had a snow day from work.  One of the advantages of living in a townhouse complex is that the community organization hires people to plow the snow.  One of the disadvantages is that they are not always prompt.  In this case, although they had plowed a narrow path in the street, there was still a pile of snow on and behind our car, so we couldn't leave.  There's starting to be so much snow that there's no place to put it.  We were naive and completely unprepared, so we didn't even have a shovel---I had to move the snow using an old dust pan, but it worked.

Digging out the car in the morning

After we dug ourselves out, it was actually a little relaxing and we spent the day walking around the neighborhood and taking some pictures.  Afterwards, we ended up going to three different stores before we finally found a place that still had shovels in stock.  I guess we weren't the only ones unprepared...

Running out of places to put the snow

Photography: Autumn Falls

This was the first week that we had truly frigid temperatures on the East Coast (sorry Midwesterners, but we were still living in the 50s as of last week!)  It hasn't snowed yet, but the temps have dipped below freezing and there's a bite to the wind now.  After seeing all of the snow hitting the rest of the country, I suppose it's only a matter of time before it's our turn.

Still, despite the relatively late start to winter here, it's been a pretty wet, mild autumn (see previous post regarding our leaking roof).  As a result, the window for viewing fall foliage was pretty short---there was literally only one week where the leaves were ablaze in color.  Both the wetness and the mild temperatures worked against a colorful display.  Cold temperatures are required to stop the production of chlorophyll in the leaves, which is the chemical which makes the leaves appear green (chlorophyll appears green since it has evolved to maximize absorption of red and blue light).  Dry weather decreases the concentration of sugar in the leaves, which accelerates the formation of anthocyanins, which are bright red (think of bright red maple leaves).  Some leaves will also have carotene, which colors the leaves yellow, and leaves with both will appear bright orange.

One of the things that I missed the most when I lived in California was the lack of seasons, particularly autumn, so this year was particularly sad.  Still, we were able to head out one weekend to catch a fleeting glimpse of fall's colors.

Pizza Stone

Although we've started making bread in our dutch oven, I still yearned for a bread stone since it would be more versatile method of baking.  The problem is that they're usually ridiculously over-priced and we haven't been able to find any quarry stones at the local hardware stones to use.  However, we luckily stumbled upon a pizza stone at Wegmans for only fifteen bucks, so we finally took the bait.

For its inaugural run, we decided to make pizza.  We've never made truly home-made pizza before so we were pretty excited.  I found an easy pizza dough recipe.  We whipped up a quick sauce from scratch and cut up some toppings (my wife prefers supreme pizza, so we prepared some italian sausage, pepperoni, red onions, mushrooms, and cheese).  After letting the dough rise twice, we started rolling it out which ended up being a little harder than I expected.  I think the dough was a little too wet  to handle and it was hard to stretch the dough out and get it as thin as we wanted.  We spread the sauce on and put the toppings on (under the cheese, which I like) and it looked good to go.

At first everything looked good...

Unfortunately, I guess we didn't think the process all the way through.  We didn't have an easy way to transfer the pizza onto the hot pizza stone in the oven.  The dough was too sticky and flexible to pick up easily and we didn't have a large paddle.  The results were pretty ugly.  We eventually had to fold it over to get it onto a large cutting board and then toss and unroll it back onto the pizza stone (maybe we should have just settled for a calzone).  We baked it for about 20 minutes at 450 degrees Fahrenheit but even that was a little too long and the pizza came out over cooked.  Despite all that, it turned out okay.  The crust ended up being a little too thick and chewy, but the bottom was definitely crispy from the pizza stone.  I think the next time we'll definitely aim for a thinner crust and maybe more healthy toppings... 

The final product, not too shabby...

All in Time

This is one of my favorite days of the year, right up there with Christmas, Thanksgiving, and definitely better than my birthday---it's the day we ditch Daylight Savings time and gain back our free hour, the only day of the year with 25 hours.  Sorry Arizona, you will never taste such sweetness.

I'm actually a little surprised that this day hasn't been seized and made more commercialized.  Where are all of the one hour sales?  Or the gifts that you have to buy everyone to celebrate their newly found hour?  Maybe it's just a matter of time (pun intended).

Anyway, we spent the extra time today just relaxing and doing some baking.  We had some leftover apples from when we had gone out apple picking, so we ended up making an apple cinnamon walnut bread (kind of like a banana bread) and apple strudel muffins.  They're fresh out of the oven and the whole house now has that warm, cozy, spiced smell.  It's much better than potpourri, significantly cheaper, even edible (although I suppose that remains to be seen...)

 Apple Strudel Muffins

Apple Cinnamon Walnut Bread

Food: Bread Baking

I've always been interested in making homemade bread---I tend to be a "starch" kind of guy, as I need some type of carbohydrates in my meals, which tends to be rice the majority of times, but pasta, bread, and potatoes are pretty good too.  Luckily I still have a high metabolism, so I'm still pretty scrawny.

However, baking bread is kind of intimidating.  Baking in general is kind of a mysterious art.  It's the one type of cooking where you really can't deviate from the recipe at all.  I've used my mom's bread machine before, and while it works, it makes typical "bread machine" bread.  At work, we had an instrument consultant stop by who recommended The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.  It's a pretty good book going over the history of bread and filled with lots of recipes, but it makes baking sound even more intimidating.  You need a dense baking stone to maintain a high temperature.  You need to keep a pan of water in the oven and mist the walls in the beginning to make sure you get good caramelization and browning of the crust.  There are different flours and different yeasts.  This sounded like a lot more work than I thought.  We tried looking for baking stones, but they tended to be pretty expensive.  We even tried looking for rough cut quarry stones from local hardware stores as a replacement (they're only a couple of bucks rather than a hundred), but they were all out.

When my friends Luke and Jenny visited, they let me know of this easy bread recipe from Mark Bittman at the New York Times.  There's even a Youtube video demonstrating the procedure.  Apparently it's so easy that even "a 4-year-old could master it".  All you need is flour, salt, instant yeast, and water.  You also let the bread do a slow fermentation and rise over 18 hours.  The real trick here is that you bake the bread in a cast iron dutch oven---the cast iron helps retain the heat so you don't need a separate baking stone.  Plus, you leave the pot covered for part of the baking time---as a result, the water from the dough is trapped and creates a high humidity environment that helps form the crust.  It's pretty ingenious.  Is there anything cast iron can't do?

So we gave the recipe a spin.  It's very strange.  The dough is very wet and almost slimy and it's not like any other dough that I've made before.  But since you slow ferment it, you don't need to do any kneading.  And it works.  After about a day, you pretty much just throw the dough ball into a preheated cast iron pot and bake it.  Afterwards, you just pop out a classic loaf of bread.  The crust is crackly and has a nice, golden brown color.  The interior is nice and soft.  It's almost like a loaf of artisan bread.  And it really is easy enough that a four-year-old could do it.  We made an oyster chowder to go with it and dipped the bread in...mmm...delicious...

We've already made it again.  This recipe is only for a typical white bread, so now we're interested in looking at other variations.  Now that we know you can use a dutch oven, it might be worth looking at that bread book again...

NYC Visit

Last week my old friend Luke and Jenny came up to visit.  As Jersey is...well...Jersey, we made our way to New York City several times.  It wasn't really the best weather to go out sightseeing and we ended up walking around in the cold and rain.  Still, I think we all had fun and it was good to get out of the house.

The first night had tickets to the Broadway show American Idiot.  It was a little strange to see Green Day songs being performed with kicks and dances on stage.  Plus, I mostly remember Green Day from Dookie, so I haven't really listened to their later, more serious stuff.  I would have guessed there would have been other rock operas to adapt to Broadway first (hmm, how about Pink Floyd?).  Anyway, it was pretty good.  It did feel like it was trying to be the new Rent, i.e. the new hip rock and roll Broadway show about disaffected youth.  The director made a decision to cut out most of the dialog and let the songs carry the show, which I'm not sure was the best idea.  The result is a plot that is a little harder to follow and more free-form, and while that may have been the intent, it made it a little harder to connect the characters on a personal level.  Especially when their lives started falling apart.  Instead, it was 90 minutes of being blasted with teenage angst.  With rock music.  And choreographed dance scenes.  Which isn't bad, per se, but I think it was a missed opportunity.

We also got tickets earlier in the day to do one of those tourist-y water cruises around the city.  It's a little cheesy, but it's still a pretty cool way to see the different parts of the city.  The boat goes around Manhattan and then closes in on Liberty Island before returning.  The weather was bad and it gave the city almost an oppressive feel with the clouds hunkering down over the skyline.

Niagara Trip IV

We also timed our trip to Niagara Falls to see the fireworks display---for most of the year, each weekend there is a fireworks display over the Falls at night (schedule here).  Despite being shot off from the Canadian side, the fireworks appear over the American Falls (we had mistakenly thought they would be over the Canadian Horseshoe Falls, so we had the camera all set up in the wrong direction).   It was actually a pretty good fireworks show and they turn out pretty spectacular over the illuminated Falls.

Overall, what was nice with the whole trip was that it was a good time to travel.  It was past tourist season so there were few crowds---there was no wait for the boat tour or the butterfly garden and even the crowd watching the fireworks wasn't that large (so we were able to move the camera and still get some decent pictures).  The weather was slightly cool at night, but was perfectly fine and sunny and not to hot during the day.  I can only imagine how crazy the place is during the summer.  I'm now starting to see why it would be better to take your summer vacation during the fall instead (and just pull your kids out of school for a week, they'll manage).

Niagara Trip III

One of the cliche things to do at Niagara Falls is to take the Maid of the Mist boat tour, which takes you pretty close to the Falls.  This is another case where there's something to the cliche---as a testament, when you get to Niagara Falls you receive coupon books for all of the cheap and cheesy tourist attractions desperate for attention (e.g., the Skywheel is a bust) except for the boat tour.  Still, a ride on the Maid of the Mist boat is not too expensive so it's definitely worth doing if you're there.  We were warned that you would get pretty wet even with the free ponchos, so we ended up sitting on the bottom deck of the boat where we were mostly shielded from the water.  Despite that, we still got pretty wet when we got close to the falls and I only dared to use a cheap small camera to snap some pictures.  We were lucky that the sun broke out right when we got onto the boat, which provided for some dazzling rainbows.

American Falls

 American Falls

 Horseshoe Falls

 Horseshoe Falls

 Horseshoe Falls

Niagara Trip II

As I mentioned before, Niagara Falls is probably one of the few touristy spots that deserves tourists.  The Falls themselves are incredible and you can walk right up to the edge to see them.  And not just see them, but you can also hear and even feel the rush of the water washing over.  It can be humbling to experience the power of the Falls and just let it wash over you (literally in some places).

Note, it's worth noting that Niagara Falls is split into an American side as well as the Canadian side with the Horseshoe Falls.  The Horseshoe Falls are larger and higher, but as a result the amount of water going over causes a giant plume of spray that can obscure the view.  Both Falls face the Canadian side, so it's the significantly better place to stay (the American side is pretty shady with run-down motels...)  Sadly, you now need a passport just to get into Canada---I remember when you could just flash a driver's license, but at least you don't have to worry about currency exchange as most places take American dollars since the exchange rate is nearly equal.

American and Bridal Veil Falls

Horseshoe Falls

 Niagara Falls Panorama

American and Bridal Veil Falls at Night

American and Bridal Veil Falls at Night

Moonlight Over Horseshoe Falls

Niagara Trip I

My mother-in-law came to visit from Hong Kong last week so we finally took a vacation.  It had been a long summer so it felt good to get away from everything---get away from the house, get away from work, get away from Jersey.  We drove up to Niagara Falls for a couple of days.  I had visited Niagara Falls before, but that was years ago and so I wasn't sure what to expect.  I guessed it would be super touristy and outrageously expensive.  And part of it was---there were the usual souvenir shops, wax museums, and chain restaurants.  But Niagara is probably one of the places where there is something behind the cliche. 

The Falls themselves are impressive.  But besides the Falls, there are also other attractions worth visiting, such as the Butterfly Conservatory.  It's only a short drive from the Falls, but it's worth the effort.  It's essentially a large greenhouse that holds hundreds of different species of butterflies.  The butterflies are freely roaming throughout the Conservatory---once you enter, they can flutter all around you.  I don't think I've ever been so close to so many butterflies at the same time.  We ended up just sitting there for a while and letting them land on us.  It was a pretty peaceful moment and we could have sat there for hours and forget about the world.