Brent P. Newhall's Blog
Cooking – May 2008

25 May 08 – Make your own root beer

You know how sodas contain quite a few chemicals and additives, right? Wish you could drink clean soda?

I've just uploaded a new video to my Cooking with CK website, explaining How to make root beer from scratch. The same directions should apply for any kind of flavor you want to add, from orange to ginger ale.

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16 May 08 – Instructable Wine

Just finished a busy time in the kitchen. Made some icebox cookie dough (with lemon!), some udon noodles from a new recipe, and wine. Sort of ghetto wine, actually.

The recipes are from Instructables, a cool website with lots of offbeat how-tos, from How to Make an Easy Inverted Planter to Making realistic Steampunk Airship Goggles. I've spent a serious amount of time browsing it in the past couple of days.

The wine recipe is suspiciously simple. As I fiddled in the kitchen tonight, I refined it thusly:

Wine

  1. Thoroughly clean a wine bottle. I washed it out with soap, then filled it with piping hot water and let it stand for a few minutes, then wrapped the top with aluminum foil while continuing with preparations.
  2. Put a funnel on the bottle, and pour in 1 and 1/8 teaspoons yeast, and ½ a teaspoon of Early Grey tea (for tannins, ya know).
  3. Put the bottle and funnel on a scale, and pour 260 grams of grape juice (or 1 cup) into the bottle. Swirl gently but firmly to mix everything.
  4. Add 485 grams of water, or until it reaches the neck (not into the neck).
  5. Lid with a balloon, and put it in a dark, cool place for 3-7 days, until it stops bubbling.
  6. Take another (thoroughly cleaned) bottle and top it with a funnel, and lay a coffee filter onto the funnel. Pour the wine through the filter into the second bottle, and cork it. Enjoy at your leisure.

That's it. I'm going to bed. My fingers feel like thick Viennese sausages, unable to type a single coherent sentence.

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13 May 08 – 13 May 08

Just finished watching several episodes of Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt, where he and a small crew travel America, off the highways, eating only locally made food (that is, nothing corporately processed or prepared).

It's amazing, watching someone passionately committed to a concept—real, carefully-prepared food—delivering on it. It's quirky and risky; you never know how it'll turn out. But the food is usually excellent.

Risks are worth it. It's inspired me to think more about my risks.

I'm also re-evaluating my routines and plans and such. After a productive Monday, and feeling a little ill today, I'm looking at my work and asking myself:

  1. Is this really helping humanity?
  2. How do I feel about it?
  3. What can I reframe to be more powerful, effective, useful, etc.?

Questions worth asking, I think.

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