some tv learning

Recently I've discovered that I'm capable (barely) of studying in front of the tv! Naturally I pretty much spent a majority of today studying (mm we'll call it that) to the sights and sounds of history channel and food network. In addition to re-learning geometry, trig, and grammar (I hate sentence correction...), I've learned quite a bit from the tv that's been playing in the background.

I suppose this isn't really that much of a surprise. Since I was a kid, I remember using television as both entertainment and a learning tool (at least that's what I tried to persuade my folks). I was always sucked into shows like Nova and Mythbusters and was a perennial viewer of shark week on discovery channel. These days it seems harder to learn stuff from television. The sometimes mind-numbing shows on tv these days leave much to be desired from the intellect after a half hour episode, yet nevertheless there are little morsels of learning to be gleamed from tv (esp history and food network):

Don't fly bomber planes. In WWII only 1 in 3 B-17 bomber crews survived their first 25 missions.

Giada has a huge head...it doesn't really look proportional to the rest of her body...

History Channel plays ChristianMingle.com ads during every break. Is there a large demographic of single christian history buffs out there that I haven't encountered??

I am officially sucked into this season of Next Food Network Star. These folks are all so raw and rough around the edges right now, and yet one of these guys will have his/her own show in a few weeks. So yes...I will be glued to the food network until this season is over.

Apparently LL Cool J is a history channel narrator. Yea...I too did a double-take when I saw that...economy must be rough these days.

food network pro-tip: apparently if you need to seer a bunch of small stuff in a pan (i.e. shrimp, scallops, beef chunks, etc), instead of taking a long time flipping each of them, you can put then on skewers, and then flip the whole skewer. I tried this today and it works!

I'm sure there's more to learn from tv...maybe after tomorrow's day of studying I'll have more to write about...

my favorite weekend

five things I liked about this weekend:

friday morning run to Davis Ace yielded the unexpected pleasure of a conversation and a free mug/tote

I got to finish off an interesting vbs week that included unexpectedly well-behaved kids and an underlying threat of stomach flu

Davis is void of students this weekend. I find myself in town (on vacay) the week between graduation and the start of summer session. The line at dos coyotes was actually manageable

I was finally able to get some quality studying done

I got a chance to toy with my new aeropress this morning. It was magical (review to follow whenever I get around to it)

*sigh* now back to work tomorrow...

50 beans | the SoMa coffee crawl

clockwise from top left: eggs florentine from Stacks on Hayes St., gelato from union square, bacon waffle from Stacks, Owl logo on the office door at Sightglass Coffee

One of the great coffee cities in the world, san francisco is home to many superb small-batch roasters. For decades, coffee has protected local residents from the steely, low-60's temperatures that plagued the city. Yesterday, I took a friend and met with a few locals to take a journey through SoMa in SF to taste the different coffee places that I've read so much about! The plan was to meet at Stacks in Hayes Valley for brunch, and then walk on over to Blue Bottle and back-track through SoMa and visit three of the best independent roasters in SF.

We were almost completely successful:

Blue Bottle Coffee - clockwise from top left: affogato, the kyoto cold-brew drip, the siphon contraption, the kyoto drip (left) next to the siphon coffee (right), blue bottle's slightly understated logo

Blue Bottle Coffee – 66 Mint Street
Blue Bottle has a few locations in SF and it’s roasting kitchen is in Oakland. Blue Bottle has been touted by folks at CNN for being possibly the best coffee you’ll ever drink (here’s a NYT slideshow on this shop and it’s siphon coffee and a CNN article about blue bottle). The 66 Mint St. location is located near union square in SoMa, tucked away in the alley behind the old US Mint building. This location features the halogen light Japanese siphon (the only one in the US).

The story is that the founder of Blue Bottle, James Freeman, wanted to purchase a siphon from the Japanese beverage giant UCC. They stipulated that he could purchase one of the machines on one condition: that he go to Japan to learn the art of stirring the water. He spent months learning to stir the water (apparently a good stirrer can create a cyclone in four flicks of the wrist) before he was able to finally purchase one. This machine sits at the end of the bar, and has different operating hours than the rest of the coffee shop (depending on when the operator takes breaks). Next to the siphon pot is the kyoto cold-brew drip contraption. This is also a japanese produced machine that does cold-brew a little differently than what I do (mason jar --> french press --> chemex filter). This machine drips cold water through coffee in such a slow painstaking process that it takes the water about 14 hours to make the journey through to the carafe.

Since I was at the only location that featured the siphon, I ordered the ethiopian tuktant (single origin) siphone coffee. My friend ordered the Kyoto, but out of fear of a caffeine headache, left me most of it as well. The siphon had a sweet fragrant taste, but it's very similar to the taste you get from brewing fresh roasted coffee in a moka pot (without the aluminum flavoring). The kyoto was similar to my cold-brew coffee, and was incredibly refreshing after walking through downtown SF looking for this place. Seeing as this contraption costs a bit more than my mason jar method, I think I'll only enjoy kyoto coffee as a rare treat, and do cold-brew the old-fashioned way. We also got an affogato (espresso poured over a scoop of honey-almond gelato). The gelato was incredibly light and airy, like someone had taken a whisk to it before serving, and the espresso mixed with the gelato to make the best coffee ice cream flavor. All in all this place was so impressive that I submitted my resume on the spot and asked them to take a chance on a coffee-nut with no barista experience. They nodded and smiled and said maybe (also read: maybe not).

random artwork on the side of a building depicting crap flying out of the windows

Ritual Coffee Roasters – 1050 Howard Street  somewhere too far to walk
One of the best known SF coffee roasters, Ritual Coffee is a popular meeting place for start-ups. These folks take their coffee seriously. Too bad we actually turned up at their old location (or the roaster facility) on howard street. All that marked the location was a little sign with an "R" on it. Since it didn't have Ritual Coffee's hammer and sickle on it, we figured it wasn't the right place. It's would've been nice to visit Ritual though. Maybe next time...

Sightglass, from across the street

Sightglass Coffee - clockwise from top left: their cool looking menu, the vintage Probat roaster, their water comes in a mason jar!, the espresso bar

Sightglass Coffee – 270 7th Street
One of the newest micro-roasters in SF (opened last august), this coffee shop is run by two brothers who both came from Blue Bottle Coffee (here’s some pictures from their opening). Set into the bland beige and white exterior of the rest of the 7th street block, Sightglass Coffee's dark brown exterior sticks out like a sore thumb. The interior of the roaster/café has a warehouse feel to it, with seating at natural tree-trunk plank tables in the loft spaces above the espresso bar. To the left of the bar is their vintage Probat roaster on display.

I got a Los Rosales (columbia) in a V-60 drip straight over ice. It came in a to-go cup since I wasn't sure if i'd be able to finish my third cup in the shop. The ice was a welcome break from the heat (low 80's is hot for SF) and the sweetness was a little surprising. It almost tasted like there was some hickory added to it. We found a table in the loft upstairs and took in the sights and smells of this new coffeehouse.

you say potatoe...

How would you like to be remember by your dumbest mistake? It can be something small, something you did accidentally on one of those off-days you have, or it can be something big, something incredibly public and incredibly embarrassing. Well what if that was what people remembered you by?

Twenty years ago today, Vice President Dan Quayle was officiating a spelling bee (yea VPs get all the important stuff), when he corrected a kid’s correct spelling of the word potato, by famously adding an e to the end of it. The public ridicule he receive for that was incredible, and to this day, anytime someone mentions the name Dan Quayle, people think potatoe. It's gotta suck to have an entire lifetime of achievements reduced down to being known as "that guy who can't spell potato". Even though he wasn’t the first to make that mistake (there were so many before him), but he did it so publicly and during an election year.

As a matter of fact, the good folks at the Oxford English Dictionary went back in history to check out people’s spelling of the word potato, and there are 64 different variations of spelling throughout history, including potatoe and even pertater. Even the NYT was using the potatoe variant as recently as 1988. Apparently, according to the OED folks, you’ll see the potatoe variant used up until June 15, 1992. Since that day, the only time someone uses the potatoe variant is in mocking reference to that day.

Well, I suppose at Dan Quayle's expense, the word potato will forever be spelled the right way now.

norman borlaug would not be happy.

When the phone rang at 4am at the Borlaug residence in Mexico City on that day in 1970, Norman had already left for work at the test fields in Toluca Valley, about 40 miles to the west. His wife Margaret picked up the phone, only to learn that her husband had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

As an american food scientist in the early 1940's, Norman Borlaug had moved to Mexico City to do wheat research. Through careful reproduction and cross-breeding, he created a semi-dwarf wheat that was resistant to disease. The dwarf aspect meant that the stalk was shorter and thicker, and this would not fall over under a heavy yield. This, coupled with the fact that it was disease resistant, meant that grain production could increase. He started with Mexico, but soon expanded the distribution of his research wheat to southeast asia, most notably India and Pakistan.

By 1963, 95% of Mexico's grain production was using the varieties that he developed, and that year, the harvest was six times larger than in 1944, the year Borlaug moved to Mexico. In war and famine ravaged India and Pakistan, the results of his research was felt almost immediately. By the late 60's and early 70's, both countries were self-sufficient in grain production, and essentially had the means to feed itself. It is estimated that through his research, Norman Borlaug is credited with saving over a billion lives.

So why am I telling you this story?

There was an article in the NYT this week about India's wheat surplus (they've got quite a surplus). As a matter of fact, India has the 2nd largest grain stockpile in the world, even exporting to countries worldwide. This surplus came about as a result of India's farm subsidies and agricultural advancements like those that Norman Borlaug introduced. They have mounds of wheat and rice sitting around, collecting dust and rotting away because they have such a largess of food. Weird huh?

What's even more perplexing, is the fact that an estimated 250 million Indians, or roughly 20% of the country is malnourished, starving, struggling to feed themselves. So why this dichotomy of excess grain and starving people? In a country plagued by corruption and inefficiency, programs that are designed to distribute food to the poor are failing miserably. It's not a case of the country not having enough to feed itself. The country has enough. It has more than enough. Norman Borlaug's lifetime of research saw to that. The government just doesn't deliver on its basic responsibility of caring for its people.

I know, it's easy to say that this country needs prayer (it does). But this country also needs change. It needs a change in the heart of those that do the distributing, those who oversee the mechanisms that are tasked with seeing to it that food gets to where it's needed. It needs a change of heart for those in the government who put up barriers. Seeing situations like this, where people lack even the basic needs because others don't want them to have it, is simply disappointing. I'm sure if Norman Borlaug were still alive, he wouldn't approve of this either.

room with a view

It's probably been at least a good 6 years or so since the last time I actually studied for anything, but I guess now's as good a time as any to get started. Too bad the week I choose to start studying just happened to be finals week at Davis. The library was packed, no open seats at starbucks or mishkas, and there were even kids studying at quickly's (never imagined I'd be able to concentrate there with the blender whirring in the background and the bootleg movies blasting on the TVs). With no open study areas in town, it was time to turn the living room into the study zone:

it started with some chemex coffee...

...followed up by a little oj...

the smiley-face wine from trader joe's isn't as pleasant as it looks.

after next week, this town should be back to normal, with the kids out of town and the library/mishkas/quickly's reclaimed by locals. Until then, looks like the study zone will be in full swing.

helloo june!

June is always an interesting time for me. As a guy who's been around in davis for a few years, June is the time when I see another class graduate. Maybe it's because I've been around too long, but I've never really been a fan of graduation ceremonies. For my ceremony, the commencement speaker was a little hard to understand (it's cool, I think most people were asleep anyways - L&S is 4 hours!). Of course the student speakers weren't much better.

I wonder if the commencement speakers from our parent's generation were any more inspiring? Seriously, the speakers these days just follow a set template. As long as they hit certain key phrases, they're good: Success comes from within. Be your own person. Your generation can change the world. Show courage. You can make a difference. Never give up. With inspirational words like that, I'm amazed I could pick out today's commencement speeches out of a lineup of Miss America acceptance babblings.

In the spirit of it being June and graduations are coming up, let's see if I can drum up some real advice (none of that follow your heart and the world will be yours crap):

Did you enjoy college? Good. Just don't stay here forever. While it's good to want to stay in school and stuff, don't. Graduate and get out of college. It's cool if you want to take the leisurely five or six years to graduate (or in the case of one ex-housemate, 9+...he spent so much time at UCD and junior college that he has brought new meaning to the term JC Crusader), but don't stay in college more than you need to. 

Move somewhere new. Do it now, don't wait. I know it's hard to leave the place you went to school for four (or five or six) years, but it's easier to move now than when you've stuck around for another four+ years. Believe me... I ought to know... 

You will make mistakes, that's a fact of life. Learn from them, and for goodness sakes don't let them impact me in any way.

Don't move back in with your folks. I know...rent's killer in big cities and you're tired of sleeping on a mattress in the corner of an empty room, but seriously, it's just weird. Once you move back in, you'll be itching to get out. 

Start tucking in your shirt. I know, I hate it too, but you're no longer 18. That untucked abercrombie shirt at work gives off the intern vibe. Tuck it in and your boss will give you meaningful work to do, leave it untucked and your boss will give you his coffee order. 

Pretty soon the TV shows you watch now will be showing on nick-at-nite. Prepare yourself. It's inevitable. 

Now that you've graduated, you no longer have the option to take an incomplete. Pass/Fail is still an option though.

In 15, 20, maybe 30 years, you and your classmates will be running this country. As long as you are competent, don't screw up my social security, and remember to eat your veggies, you'll be fine. Congrats on graduating.