Back on July 23^rd the MBTA finally delivered on one of its promises to Commuter Rail riders and instituted an electronic parking payment system. Called ParkMobile, the system is provided by a company called ParkMobile USA based in Atlanta. Using either an iPhone app, a text message, or a phone call, a user can pay for parking over the phone without having to fold a bunch of dollar bills or find a handful of coins to shove through the slots in Commuter Rail parking lots. I wrote about what a pain in the ass this is several months ago and even suggested a business opportunity for someone to alleviate this pain for commuters.

But it looks like the ParkMobile system goes a long way towards fixing the problem. I signed up and started using it the first day it was available, though not without some learning curve. What you need to do is tell them the license plate number of your car, the lot (they call it the zone), and the space number of your car each day. Then they deduct the $4 for parking and that’s it.

My basic review and impressions after two weeks are this: the iPhone app is pretty bad but usable, the customer service is responsive, and the system as a whole is much easier and more convenient than the old manual way.

I’ve used only the iPhone app, so I can’t comment about the text messaging or the phone methods. The app is pretty crude as far as apps go, and it’s slow as a dog, because it appears to need constant communication with the home server for every screen refresh. But, it eventually does what it needs to do. The one major bug I found is that the app doesn’t allow you to remove old license plate numbers once they’re saved, which caused me my first problem using the system (you can remove it via the website, but that’s not the easiest process either). When I first set up the app, I accidentally put a 7 in my license plate number where a 2 should have been. I couldn’t delete the incorrect plate, so I simply entered the correct version too. The next morning, I set up my parking with, you guessed it, the wrong plate number. I realized this almost immediately and then realized a major flaw in the system – you can’t undo a parking transaction either. So, I created another transaction with the correct plate number, and the same space number. When I got to work, I went to the ParkMobile website and sent an e-mail to their support address (there was no phone number). I received a response within a couple of hours and after a little information exchange, they issued a credit, though they said they needed to send it to my house. Strange that they couldn’t credit the credit card that the parking is charged to. But they were responsive nonetheless.

One benefit occurred to me on a day when I was rushing and put down the wrong space number for my car (I entered 48 when my car was actually in 49). I realized this while I was on the train, but decided to take my chances. And when I got back to the station – no fine envelope. My guess is that the parking police get a list of license plates and were able to figure out that I paid and just screwed up the space number. That’s an advantage over the old system for sure. If you put your bills in the wrong slot, you’re out of luck and you’ll get a fine.

So overall I’m very happy that the MBTA finally did something about their 19^th century parking system and gave us a modern option. I for one won’t be using the slots again – ever.

Thanks MBTA. It’s about time!

The Final Product

I’m preparing for my 8^th annual summer BBQ party, the “Carnivore’s Carnival.” I normally spend two full days barbequeing meat for this party  including three full pork shoulders for pulled pork and four racks of spare ribs. This involves sitting and tending a fire for over 18 hours on at least one day, followed by another six hours on the next day. So this year I figured, since I’d be sitting and tending smokers, I’d do some bacon at the same time in my electric smoker.

I went to my favorite market in Boston, Savenors on Charles St. and picked up five pounds of pork belly for bacon. When I saw the $4.99 per pound price though I thought something was wrong. I know I’m paying city prices in Boston and all, and I was getting locally raised (in Vermont) organic pork, but still, I thought that was expensive.

Then I found this article by Curt Thacker in the Wall Street Journal online:

Pork Bellies Rise, Bacon Lovers Pay

… Prices for fresh pork bellies, from which bacon is made, are at an all-time high of $1.35 a pound, 53% higher than they were a year ago.

… The decision by North American swine producers to cut their losses by trimming their herds back in 2008 and 2009 is now feeding into cost pressures …

So that explains it. Also, Savenors sells its belly with the skin already removed, so that means more meat for the dollar too. But still, $5 per pound for what used to be ultra-cheap meat. Oh well, such is the price of quality homemade food.

Anyway, I have two pieces of belly curing in the refrigerator now following my recipe from my Makin’ Bakin 2 post. Only on one of them I added ground black pepper to make pepper bacon. I’ll give them 14 days to cure and then smoke them up. I can’t wait.

Taking on the tradition of Kovászos Uborka.

My father was Hungarian. Like many Hungarians in America, he came in 1956 without much. But he did remember a few recipies from his youth. One of them was for a half-sour dill pickle fermented in the sun. Making them every year was a project and involved a lot of stuff boiling on the stove and many one gallon jars which would sit outside in the sun for days at a time. There are many varieties of such ‘sun pickles’ in the world, and they are common to many eastern European cultures.

I don’t remember the exact proportions of his recipe, and he died a few years ago, but I remember the basic ingredients he used:

• a salt-water brine
• white vinegar
• black peppercorns
• bay leaves
• fresh dill
• garlic
• rye bread

There is considerable debate about how these kind of fermented pickles can be made. Among the questions:

• Is the vinegar necessary? What does it do?
• Should the jars be sealed during fermentation?
• Why use the bread? Is it needed?

I looked for recipes online and found a lot. A pretty authentic one it seems is on Chew.hu. It doesn’t use vinegar but seems to advocate fermenting with the jars open. Another recipe from the Orange County Hungarians is similar, without vinegar and fermenting in open jars, and with a lot of garlic. Another recipe for Hungarian Summer Pickles on About.com does use vinegar and ferments in a capped jar. Someone called June Meyers has a recipe on Bigoven.com that also uses vinegar and an open jar.

After my research, I’ve thought about a few things and here is what I’ve decided to do for my recipe (the first jar of cucumbers and the dill came from my garden – I supplemented a couple jars from a local farm).

Vinegar

The vinegar is designed for two purposes. One, it does impart a flavor or tang to the final pickle. Although most of the tang ultimately comes from lactic acid produced during the fermentation, the vinegar adds a bit of extra kick. But primarily, the vinegar seems to be used as a hedge against alkaline water (pH greater than 7) allowing the growth of harmful bacteria. It’s generally assumed that a lower pH will lead to a safer brine. So I’ll use a little vinegar in mine.

Bread

Many recipes allude to the bread being used to introduce yeast to the brine. But that’s ridiculous - bread is baked and contains no live yeast – at least no more than is present on any other object. My theory is that the bread actually introduces complex carbohydrates and starches to the brine, giving the yeast naturally present something to chew on. So I will use bread.

Open or Closed

Some people believe that an open jar is necessary for safety – allowing the brine to remain oxygenated will prevent the growth of botulism. I’m not sure that is a real issue – the salinity and low pH (since I’m using vinegar) should be enough. More importantly, an open or at least loose cap will allow the brine to escape when the jar heats up in the sun. So I’ll use a loose lid on a 1 quart Ball wide mouth jar.

The Recipe

In the end, here is what I am trying.

For each one quart jar, you’ll need about 2 cups of brine due to the volume taken up by cucumbers.. So, for each quart of brine needed:

• 2 T salt (3 T kosher salt)
• 3 T white vinegar

Dissolve these in 1 quart water.

Slice the ends off of pickling cucumbers, and cut slits lengthwise, leaving about 1/8″ uncut. You will have quartered the cucumber, except the ends are slightly attached. This helps the brine reach the inside of each cucumber. Pack the cucumbers in the jar.

Add:

• 1 hot pepper (or red pepper flakes to taste)
• 12 peppercorns
• 1 clove garlic (peeled)
• A bunch of dill

Pour the brine almost to the top. Pack one piece of bread into the top of the jar and top off the brine liquid. Loosely cap the jar and place in the sun for three days. (I take the jars in at night so animals don’t get to them.)

They will get cloudy – and you can let them go for more than three days if you like a softer, more sour pickle. I like mine with a little crispness. Refill the brine level as necessary each day.

The Verdict

They turned out exactly as I remembered. I always thought that my father’s pickles tasted a little bitter, which I attributed to all the garlic he put in the jars, but I had the same problem with mine and I used much less garlic. Now I believe it might be the vinegar.

For the next batch, I think I will cut the vinegar in half and maybe add a bit of sugar to the brine. Not enough to turn them into Koolickles, but enough to take the bitter edge off.

Let me know in the comments if you try this.

There are some things that even the best grill – gas or charcoal – just can’t do well. Like make a hamburger with a nice crust on the outside. Or make hash browns. The usual way to overcome this flaw is to use a pan or some sort, like a cast iron skillet. Or to get a fancy new grill with a side burner and some kind of cheap accessory griddle. My grill came with one – it’s about the size of two postage stamps and has a cheap non-stick surface that barely browns anything.

And those are the major problems with most solutions that try and address this issue: they’re either too small or they don’t really brown things. What I’m talking about of course is a real restaurant style griddle. Having one of these really opens up cooking possibilities – especially if you can use it with your grill. I mean, a lot of things that are typically cooked on a griddle can be stinky or spray grease, so all the better if they can be cooked outside. Especially in the summer.

Enter the Little Griddle Company, makers of the Griddle-Q and Sizzle-Q grilltop griddles.

These are advertised as restaurant-like griddles for your grill. I first heard about them on the BBQ Source message boards that I frequent and a few guys there have them liked them. So this summer I took the plunge.

I looked at the Griddle-Q site and almost choked … the smallest one costs $169.99! for a 12″ x 16″ surface. Whoa! I understand that they are thick stainless steel and have a lifetime warranty and all, but wow. For some reason that was just more than I was willing to spend. And, the sizes didn’t really work for my current grill. The 12″ x 16″ was too small for what I thought I’d be cooking and the 21″ x 13.5″ was a bit too wide.

Fresh on the Sizzle-Q

Thankfully, they also make a model that is much less expensive: the Sizzle-Q. 18″ x 13″ for $69.99 MSRP. Now we’re talking. I looked around online to see if I could find it anywhere less expensive and I did – on EBay. I picked one up, brand new, for $59.49, shipping included from a seller called CSNStores.

So- how does it work? Great. Exactly as advertised. My first meal was a couple of frozen hamburgers and they turned out just as I hoped. Medium rare but with a nice crust on the outside. On a cheap white roll they are the perfect all-American diner burger. There’s a picture of them on the left. Later I also made an ambitious meal of grilled sausages, peppers, onions, and hash-browned potatoes. Although this size is somewhat constrained in space, it did an admirable job with the peppers and onions – certainly better than anything I could have done on the grill itself.

Even though the Sizzle-Q is the cheaper model, it feels and looks plenty sturdy to me. All the welds look well done and the finish is very good. I honestly can’t imagine that the Griddle-Q really improves much in this for almost three times the price.

My advice is this: if you like to cook outdoors and are looking for a way to expand what you can do, the Sizzle-Q is a great accessory. On my grill it covers about 3/4 of the grill surface so I still have some area left for regular grilling. The stainless surface of the Sizzle-Q cleans up easily just by spraying it with a little water and hitting it with a scraper. And the stainless surface really browns and cooks food much better than any non-stick surface out there and cleans up just as easily. Is this really that much better than a cast iron pan? I think so – the squared corners and larger surface make moving food around a little easier, and the clean up is easier. I’m satisfied that this is worth the $60 I paid for it. But I still balk at the $190 or $200 prices of the Griddle-Q models. I’m not sure those can be justified.

So I say go ahead and get a Sizzle-Q and expand your cooking options. Happy grilling.

My New Favorite BBQ Accessory

24 quart Party Stacker

I wrote a little while ago that finding equipment for handling full-size bar-b-que cuts of meat can be a royal pain. Not to mention finding insulated containers for all your bar-b-que’d goodness when you want to take it to someone else’s place. For prep work I’ve been a big fan of using commercial food containers and pans I’ve collected from EBay and other places. But while I was browsing through my local BJ’s Wholesale Club the other day I saw a special on Coleman “Party Stacker” coolers. The bundle came with a 24 quart and a 33 quart model together and was only $38.

And I have to say I love these things. For carrying food or drinks, these things are perfect. For serving drinks, they’re pretty good, but other coolers may be better.

Coleman claims to have designed these with beverages in mind. The smaller cooler holds 12 cans (and some ice) or a couple of 9″ x 13″ pans stacked. The larger cooler holds either 12 longneck bottles or 24 cans (or again, a few 9″ x 13″ pans stacked). Pretty good sizing, but I wish they could accommodate standard steam table pan sizes rather than home baking dish sizes. Oh well. A 1/3 size steam table pan might fit, though it might slide around a little.

What makes these coolers so good for handling food? First the lids are completely removable, so getting things in and out is easy. Second, there is no drain plug to leak and therefore no grooves or channels to have to scrub out. The inside is smooth and easy to clean. The lid is also well designed – not only does it securely hold other Party Stacker coolers, but it’s flat and has a good drainage notch so it can be used to hold wet stuff while it drains.

The 24 quart size is great for brining large amounts of chicken or holding ribs while the rub is working. They’re great for holding all kinds of food after it comes out of the smoker and is resting.

So – get yourself some of these. They’re great and inexpensive.

There’s nothing like several weeks without rain and the first heatwave in 17 years to make this growing season in the garden the exact opposite of last year.

The official NWS report of the heat we’ve been having for the last week says this:

                  JUL 4   JUL 5   JUL 6   JUL 7   JUL 8   JUL 9

CENTRAL AND WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS

WORCESTER ASOS     87F     92F     96F     93F      -
  FIRST OFFICIAL HEAT WAVE SINCE AUG 26-28 1993

Coupled with the fact that it hadn’t rained in nearly two weeks and we have the opposite summer from last year. And the garden shows it. Nothing will fight back suspected late blight like two weeks of non-stop sunshine and dry weather.

I’ve managed to keep ahead of the heat with relatively little water, because I use a drip irrigation system. I can soak the plant roots deeply with relatively little water and none wasted. My garden system consists mainly of 1/4″ dripline tubing from Dripworks. I have about 50 total feet which according to specs should emit between 30 and 40 total gallons per hour. I usually give the garden a couple of hours of watering  every few days in this heat. And though that may sound like a lot of water, all of it goes to the roots. Compare that to a traditional sprinkler which can put out over 300 gallons per hour and which will soak the leaves and stems creating conditions ripe for fungal diseases.

So this year, I might harvest something! The tomatoes are setting fruit, the cucumbers are coming, and the basil and dill is doing great. And my pumpkins and watermelon (planted late) is doing well too.

Overall a much improved season from 2009.

I was craving tamales, one of my favorite foods and was taking stock of the ingredients in my cabinet. Unfortunately, I had run out of the all important Maseca flour needed to make the batter. And a trip to the supermarket yielded no results. But I did have  several cans of hominy in the cupboard. So I asked myself if I could turn canned hominy into the masa needed for a good tamale.

Since I searched for this question and found it asked all over the internet but never found it answered, I’ll answer it here. Yes, you can make tamales using canned hominy ground in a food processor.

If you’re not familiar with the different kinds of corn used for various Mexican foods (like tortillas and tamales) a good primer is this section of About.com. Understanding the nixtamalization process and the resulting products will help make sense of my recipes below.

I reasoned that the main difference between masa and hominy was the amount of cooking and therefore the  amount of water in the corn. The canned hominy was definitely wetter than fresh masa. But since tamale dough is really a batter where the masa is mixed with water or a broth, I figured the extra moisture present in the hominy wouldn’t hurt. I would just have to cut down on the broth I added when I mixed up the batter.

I experimented with a couple of dough mixtures until I got the recipe right. Here’s my recipe.

Basics

I usually make my tamales in two parts, over two days. I follow a basic recipe for the batter that is a cross between the recipe found in my old copy of The Joy of Cooking and in Rick Bayless’ Mexican Kitchen.

On day one I make the filling, which is usually some form of stewed meat. I use the broth left from this phase to flavor the dough when I make it on the second day. I typically prefer chicken and pork for the filling and use whatever cuts I can find that are on special.

The Filling

Chicken With Jalapenos and Black Beans

Ingredients

• 2 Split chicken breasts with rib meat.
• 2 T Chili powder
• 1 T Kosher salt
• 4 – 6 cloves garlic
• 2 t Cumin
• 1 t Black pepper
• 1/2 – 1 can black beans
• 2 medium jalapenos, seeded & de-veined, chopped fine
• 2 T Goya Recaito
• 1 medium lime

Method

1. Place the breasts in a stock pot and cover with water.
2. Add the chili powder, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin.
3. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 1 – 2 hours, until chicken is fully cooked.
4. Remove the breasts and allow to cool.
5. Strain the remaining broth and and reserve 2 – 4 cups.
6. Remove skin from breasts and shred meat.
7. In a mixing bowl, (or in the bowl of a food processor if you like a finely ground tamale filling) mix chicken meat, black beans, Recaito, chopped jalapenos, and juice and zest of the lime.

Chipotle Pork

Ingredients

• 3-4 lb. pork roast (loin roast or whatever cut you prefer)
• 3 T Chili powder
• 1 T Kosher salt
• 4 – 6 cloves garlic
• 2 t Cumin
• 1 t Black pepper
• 1 can chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
• 3 T Goya Sofrito seasoning

Method

1. Place the roast in a stock pot and cover with water.
2. Add the chili powder, garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin.
3. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 1 – 2 hours, until fully cooked.
4. Remove the roast and allow to cool.
5. Strain the remaining broth and and reserve 2 – 4 cups.
6. Shred the meat.
7. In a mixing bowl, (or in the bowl of a food processor if you like a finely ground tamale filling) mix pork, chipotles (use a number based on your taste), and sofrito.

The Tamale Dough

Ingredients

• 2 15 oz. cans Goya hominy
• A few ounces masa harina
• 4 oz. lard (chilled). Shortening may also be used
• 1 t baking powder (double acting)
• Up to 1 C broth (I use whichever broth came from the filling I am making the dough for)
• Salt to taste

Method

1. Grind the hominy to a fine paste in a food processor.
2. Using a stand or hand mixer, cream the lard and baking powder together.
3. Begin to add the hominy, 1/3 at a time until filly mixed.
4. Once incorporated, add broth as necessary to create a spreadable texture. How thick you make the batter depends on how fluffy you want the final tamale texture. The wetter the batter, the fluffier and softer the resulting tamale. (Until the batter is too wet and then it will never set up when cooked.) Some people like their dough the consistency of modeling clay, while others (like me) prefer a spreadable, cream-cheese or even lighter texture. I like the consistency shown in this video.

After this, it’s a matter of filling and steaming.

I was impressed with the hominy version. The texture is a little coarser or rustic than dough made from dehydrated masa, yet is is also fluffier or less dense. I encourage you to experiment.

Recaito

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that I thought Late Blight had already begun to affect my garden this year. Thankfully, the crisis seems to have been averted.

The main help was several bright, sunny, warm days in a row. I was able to get the plants into the ground and prune off anything showing signs of discoloration or disease. And I think the sunlight worked its magic and killed off any remaining pockets on the leaves.

So for now I remain blight free. Though we’ve had several days of rain lately and the slugs are coming out in force and devouring everything!

For several years Symantec’s Norton products have made my life a living hell. Three years ago I bought my 70 year-old mother a Dell computer to replace her nearly 10 year-old Gateway that was finally too old to run Windows XP. (It actually lives on running Debian Linux in my basement.) The system arrived with the full complement of Dell bloatware, most of which I spent a couple of hours uninstalling. But since she has DSL service, I figured she should have some sort of virus protection, so I left the copy of Norton 360 installed.

Since that fateful moment, every single problem I’ve had to troubleshoot on her computer has been the result of Norton. This is not an exaggeration. My mother lives an hour away from me, so an onsite troubleshooting session is a minimum of two hours of commuting hassle. And Norton has required at least four onsite visits as well as several remote troubleshooting sessions (thank you Team Viewer and the free for personal use policy). The bulk of the problems have come after automatic updates and upgrades. Usually what happens is that the update wouldn’t successfully complete and there would be a constant security warning box that freaked my mother out until I could download an updated version and install it. Other times the problems came at the annual subscription renewal time where my mother could never get the system to take her order and the subscription would run out and the product would flash all kinds of warnings.

But the final straw happened about three weeks ago when another upgrade failed to completely install, and it caused a constant BSOD, which meant I couldn’t remotely troubleshoot it either. So into the car I went, fighting Boston traffic the whole way. Using the Windows Task Manager I confirmed that a Norton process was running when the BSOD happened . So, after the third reboot, I managed to start the task manager fast enough to get in and kill both Norton processes and then verified that the computer would actually stay running, which it did. So I started uninstalling Norton, but as anyone who had tried knows, Norton can’t be uninstalled easily. Using the uninstall option in the Norton program group left enough crap on the system that the upgrade process actually started itself and the incomplete update warning box popped up – after the program was supposed to uninstalled! So I had to download a special uninstall program from the Symantec website, because, well, because why the hell should the uninstall option actually uninstall the program? Fucking hell, Symantec, how do you assholes live with yourselves?

So I am officially done with Symantec – I’ve moved into active boycott mode. I have run Kaspersky antivirus on my own systems since it was a freeware program for Linux and I have had only one technical problem in all those years due to a bad upgrade that they posted which caused a major Windows security conflict. But they published a patch within a few hours. So my mom is now running Kaspersky too.

And I am D-O-N-E done with Symantec and Norton products.

For Bar-B-Que That Is

If you’ve decided to tackle bar-b-que, particularly spare ribs, you will eventually run into a problem that has vexed many a home cook. That is: home cookware wasn’t made to deal with large slabs of meat. A trimmed St. Louis cut rack of ribs is more than 22 inches long. That’s wider than a half sheet pan (a large cookie sheet) which is only 18 inches edge to edge. So if you intend on seasoning a rack of ribs and giving them eight or more hours in the refrigerator, you need something substantial to hold it. And if you want to do two or three or even four racks at a time … well, you’re into commercial equipment.

My favorite container for large slabs of ribs or multiple shoulders or bellies is a commercial 18″ x 26″ x 6″ food storage box. I have a clear Lexan version but you can also get them in white polyethylene. The whole rig cost me $43.99 including shipping from EBay. The only downside is that these boxes are actually 26¼” wide. That’s a problem for me because my second refrigerator is exactly 26″ wide inside. So I need to put the box in a little slanted to fit. When something drains liquid this can be an advantage, but it is a pain in the ass. So I suggest you measure your fridge before you go and buy something like this.

But in the end, it is really convenient to have a container large enough to accommodate full racks. I recommend a little EBay shopping of you have a refrigerator big enough to hold one of these tubs. It’ll make your life easier.