MarcoFrom.Com ☆ Marco in Seattle

Toddler mischief

Today we rearranged oour living room a bit and I was surprised to hear my subwoofer make a strange rattling sound, when I moved it. The first thing I found inside was the plastic chicken. Turning the subwoofer upside down didn't work very well and I couldn't even get my hand in there.

Finally I realized that toddlers are not only good at making a mess - Tim's tiny hands were able to reach inside and get all the plastic toys back:

A chicken
A carton of milk
A car
A monkey
An ear of corn
A carrot
A banana
A cookie
An orange
A pear
Two lemons

Bretzel vs Pretzel - The deluxe recipe

This is the hard way of baking original German (Swabian) Bretzels. For the easy way, check out the Pretzel post at TheFreshLoaf. And by the way, I do think that going the extra mile of creating the Pâte fermentée and using real lye (Food grade Sodium Hydroxide - NaOH, which I bought from AAA Chemicals) is totally worth the effort.

I got the recipe from a German site called Chili und Chiabatta. This is my English version, slightly simplified:

A day ahead, create the Pâte fermentée (fermented dough):

144g White Flour
94g Water
2.8g Salt
1 pinch of Dry Yeast

Kneed everything together, cover and let rise for 12-16h at about 70F.

Now create the real dough:

578g White Flour
340g Water
12g Salt
14g Fresh Yeast (I used 2.5 tsp Dry Yeasy)
36g soft Butter
7g Baking Malt (I used 1 tbsp Cane Sugar)
240g Pâte fermentée (all the above)

Mix everything together, except the Pâte fermentée, for 3min in the FoodPro. Now add the Pâte fermentée in chunks and continue to kneed for 5min. Let rise for 1h (in a slightly greased bowl, covered with cling wrap at 21C), fold the dough and let rise for another hour.

Make about 15 portions (85g each) and roll them out to about 60cm long 'worms' with a thick middle section. Lay into the typical Bretzel shape.

Cover with cloth and let rise for 30-45min. Now cool in the fridge for 30min - the Bretzels are a lot easier to handle afterward.

Now the fun part - The lye:

1250g cold Water
50g NaOH

Warning: Wear protective goggles and gloves and only use glass or stainless steel - especially aluminum does not withstand this solution (check your baking pan)!
(Now is a good time to preheat your oven to 230C) Slowly stir the NaOH into the cold water until fully dissolved. Using a large skimmer dunk each Bretzel into the solution for 5s. Top with coarse salt and using a sharp knife, make an incision at the belly of the Bretzel.

Update: Because those Bretzels taste the best right after baking, I did try to freeze a couple of them at this point in the process and the result was encouraging - Give it a try, if you don't think you will eat all of them right away :)

On a well greased baking pan (No Al!) bake the Bretzels for 14-16min at 230C.

Bretzels taste best when still warm - try them with a Bavarian Cheese spread called, aka Obatzda! More pics at SmugMug.

Get 'em while they're free

Sorry, for US residents only.... unless you're good with a proxy ;)

No-WWW

Long-overdue! Get rid of the www.
double-you-double-you-double-you is just a waste of money, brains and time (wombat)
marcofrom.com is at Class-B compliance level!

My Dæmon Eutropia

I'm very much looking forward to The Golden Compass - check out the Trailer!

Island in flames

9 days ago our cruise stopped at the little island of Catalina and we drove around the island in a golf cart:

You can tell it was pretty dry.

Yesterday a fire broke out and 4000 acres of the island are in flames:
News Report.

The previous entry shows Timmy on the beach on Catalina...

Sea-Water Experience

This is Tim, 16 months, shortly after his first contact with the sea. I thought the water was ok that day in Catalina, but as you can tell from the picture, he is not a fan of cold, salty water.
A few days later, we tried the heated hotel pool, which he liked ok, but he only really enjoyed the water in the adjacent hot whirl pool.
Bonus material: Video of Tim dancing!

Protest!

Iraq war enters its fifth year - the protests in Seattle go right past my office:

Maybe I didn't see all of them, but that group weren't the expected thousands....

Tim goes shopping

Tim made is first purchase today. He grabbed the remote control for our DVR and managed to purchase an on demand movie for 3.99$. I'll make sure to deduct that from his allowance, once he as one, because the movie sucked!

The Black Dahlia is nominated for an Oscar (Best Achievement in Cinematography):

An adaptation of James Ellroy's novel about two 1940s L.A. cops who head up the hunt for the killer of starlet Elizabeth Short.

Update: At least Black Dahlia didn't win an Oscar, instead Pan's Labyrinth won that category (and others) - a movie I really enjoyed ;)

Post V-Day

Flowers and Greeting-Card vendors hang their heads, on the day after:

Fast Food

"I'll have the Cheetah Steak and the Peregrine Falcon Wings."
"Sorry, Sir, we don't carry Fast Food.

Mal wieder was aus Deutschland

Gefunden über Google AdWords:
Matthias Pöhm Rhetorik-Seminar und Schlagfertigkeit - schlagfertigkeit.com

Ist Ihnen die Antwort wieder zu spät eingefallen? In Zukunft ist das kein Thema mehr für Sie, denn Sie werden durch den Besuch dieses Intensiv-Seminars erfahren, dass Schlagfertigkeit nicht angeboren, sondern erlernbar ist.

Das Beste ist die Antwort-Bibliothek:
Ich frag mich zwar, wie das schlagfertig ist, wenn ich erst mal mit dem Computer online nachschauen kann, mit was für einer spontane Antowrt ich da jetzt zurückschlagen kann, aber wenn man sie alle lernt, ist man nicht mehr zu bremsen!
Z.B. Da sind wohl ein paar Pfunde zu viel! * Hast du ein Problem damit? - Wow, ganz schön schlagfertig! oder
Du Idiot * Da falle ich ja in deiner Umgebung nicht weiter auf

Da bleibt dem Gegenüber sicher die Spucke weg!

FREEDOM!

A colleague just mentioned this famous quote from Braveheart and I remembered this funny story.

When I went to Scotland with two friends in 2000, we also went to see Stirling Castle. That's were an important battle between William Wallace and the English took place, which is depicted in Braveheart.

Now the local town council thought it'd be a good idea to commemorate this historic event by putting up a stone statue of .... Mel Gibson, an Australian Actor, playing a Scottish folk hero, shouting FREEDOM!. That of course didn't go well with the local population and the statue was target of multiple attacks with Paint and the like.

Now every night at 5pm the statue gets locked into a cage, for it's own protection. So much for FREEEDOM!

Don't believe me? Click the link to the picture. I guess now that Mel has shown his racist side, the thing will stay locked all day long....

Snow again

After our visit to Germany with pretty warm temperatures we now plunged into sub-freezing temperatures again and a lot of snow and ice on the roads.
This is the view from our living room, including our car:

SpagBol

I listened to Jamie Oliver's Podcasts yesterday and notably found an original Italian recipe for SpagBol (Spaghetti Bolognese) by Jamie's friend Gennaro Contaldo. I haven't tried it yet, but my own recipe goes a lot differently - I like it with Carrots and a lot of chopped tomatoes. But here it goes, transcribed by me from the Podcast:

Ingredients:

extra virgin Olive Oil
finely sliced Onions
Celery
Half Pork & Beef minced Meat
1 Glass of Red Wine
Couple of Spoons Tomato Puree, concentrated
1/2-1 l of Stock
Bunch Rosemary

Sweat Onions and Celery in Oil. Add Minced Meat and loosen it up.
When the meat is browned add a glass of vine and let evaporate for a bit. Then add Tomato Puree, and fill up with Stock.
Add whole Rosemary and season (with Salt and Pepper).
Slowly simmer over very little heat for about an hour. Take out the Rosemary and serve (with Spaghetti cooked al dente and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano).

Listen to the Podcast yourself and see if I forgot anything - the annotations in the (round brackets) are my assumptions. Also check Wikipedia on Bolognese Sauce.