Light my fire

So, one of the benefits of living in unincorporated county is that you can satisfy your inner pyromaniac and burn things once in a while, greenhouse gases be damned. In our neighborhood lots of people rake their leaves to the curb and burn them in the fall and once every few years when I don't feel like hassling with bagging and dragging them to the city compost heap so do I. Like this last Saturday, a perfect fall day (if a bit breezy). I raked the prodigious amount of leaves produced by our one deciduous tree, an oak in front of the house. And by "prodigious" I mean one year when I bagged them they filled 18 55 gallon contractor bags, even with me stamping down the contents of each bag multiple times. That's a boat load of leaves, friend.

The leaves had been dry for over a week and so were nice and light to get to the curb using the leaf blower and rake. Within 45 minutes I had all the leaves in the front yard in the street:

[Click to enlarge]

In case it's not clear, that a huge pile of leaves - use the rake and shovel in the picture for scale. It was at least three feet deep and longer than the entire front of our house. And that's about half of what the tree produced. Another quarter was on the other side of the driveway, and another quarter's worth was in the backyard (I just mulched that with the mower). And actually another quarter (five quarters?) was still in the tree, since oaks are pretty stingy about dropping their leaves. Anyway, I got the hose out because on a breezy day dry leaves burn fast (every fall I find myself wondering why we don't harness them as some sort of power source) and I didn't want it to get out of hand. Then I applied a lighter to the upwind side of the pile. 15 minutes later, this was all that was left:

20 minutes after that it was basically all gone. I didn't get a picture at the height of the fire because it was burning so hot and intense I was paying close attention to it not getting out of control. But let's just say this - the arsonist in me was satisfied for another season.

Have you burned anything lately?

"Oh, Pa, that song always makes me cry."

[The title is a quote from an old TV show - my mom will get the reference, I'm not sure anyone else will.]

Got any hymns you love but you can't sing, because you always choke up? I do:

• Amazing Grace
• Silent Night
• Jesus Loves Me
• How Can I Keep From Singing

Somewhere in each one, my throat just tightens up, tears well, and I have to stop, even while loving it still being sung by those around me.

What about you? What hymns do you love, but can't sing?

But what really knocked me out was her cheap sunglasses

[This may be my first ever blatant endorsement here. The usual disclaimers apply. No, I am not getting paid by the company or getting any sort of free products or services from them. I am just a happy customer.]

Even with a vision plan at work, glasses for this seeing-impaired family can get expensive. Once you're done paying for all the up-sells (anti-scratch coating, anti-UV coating, the amount your frames ran over the allowed amount, etc.) it ends up being a chunk of change. So that's why I'm glad Les turned me on to Zenni Optical. They are a company that makes their own glasses, does no marketing, relying on word-of-mouth (like this - I've also recommended them directly to probably a dozen people), and sells only through the Internet.

The result? Lots and lots of cheap glasses. How cheap? They have glasses (frames and lens together) starting at$8. Lots of glasses in price ranges of $9.95, $12.95, $15.95, $19, etc. Need UV protection? It's free. Anti-scratch coating? It's free. Anti-reflective coating? $4.95. Tinting for sunglasses? $4.95. Bi-focals? Starting at $25. Progressive (no-line) bi-focals? $37. I've gotten a pair of prescription sunglasses from them for $22, and progressive bi-focals for under $50. They have titanium frames, rimless, frames, even prescription goggles for working, skiing or bike riding.

Recently one of my nose piece pads fell off and they sent me not just two replacement pads, but scads of hardware and a little tool for working on my glasses. For free. Just for asking.

So if you need new glasses, or perhaps you just want a second pair for fashion's sake, or a pair of prescription sunglasses but could never justify the cost to yourself, you now have your answer - Zenni Optical. Never walk out of your optometrist's office without your prescription in hand so you can buy from Zenni. Check 'em out.

Powdered fire

This seems to be turning into a food blog. Not intentionally, it's just I love to cook and moreover to experiment with cooking, so that gives me something to write about. While there's a lot going on in our lives right now, I am not at the point of wanting to share some of it. And I got tired of writing (and reading) about religion. So cooking's a nice safe subject. Let's get on with it, yes?

The garden didn't produce like I thought it would this summer because it was cooler than usual (other than the record-breaking heat wave in early July that coincided with our A/C being broken for a few weeks). But that turns out to be a good thing, because if it had put out tomatoes and chilies like I thought it would then I'd be out peddling the damned things on street corners. So after making and freezing a bunch of pasta sauce, I started drying the tomatoes as well as tabascos, habaneros and jalapeños. And I ended up with a bunch of all four. What to do? Then I hit upon an idea, inspired by my dehydrated salsa mix I made for backpacking this summer (which turned out quite good, actually). How about a "hot salsa" type of seasoning powder? Think Mrs. Dash with some balls. So last night that's what I made.

Ingredients

All of the following are approximations (which you're used to from me by now).

• 2-3 cups dehydrated Roma tomato halves (very dry, not kinda-dry-but-still-chewy like sun-dried tomatoes)
• 1 cup dehydrated jalapeño halves
• 1 cup dehydrated habanero halves
• ½ cup dehydrated onion flakes
• 2 Tbs dehydrated garlic granules
• 2 Tbs dried oregano
• 1 Tbs ground cumin
• 1 Tbs salt

Directions

Split the ingredients into two or three batches. Put each batch in the blender, put the lid on and blend until it is all a powder. Empty results into a container and repeat with remaining batches. That's it. The above yielded about one and a half cups of powder.

Hint: If you've ever ground up dried chilies before, you know the resulting dust can cause explosive sneezing and irritation of the nasal passages. Let the batch sit in the blender with the cover on for a minute or so after you're done pulverizing to give the dust a chance to settle. It seemed to help.

The results are actually quite tasty, and quite hot. The concentrated tomato flavor hits your tongue first, and then the fire of the peppers comes right on through. It is good. I have enough of the ingredients to make another batch and am thinking of giving shakers of it away for Christmas presents, although most people I know aren't quite as much of a "hot head" as I am, so a little will go a long way.

I'm such a cut up

Want to save some money in these recessionary times? Sure you do. Then why not be your own butcher? Now, I am not talking about carving up a whole cow, or even chopping up a chicken (although that's not a bad place to start, either - whole chickens are cheap). But how would you like some tasty, tasty boneless pork loin chops? At their usual $3.99/lb., maybe you don't feel you can afford them. But what if you can get them for $1.77/lb.? Here's all it takes:

1) When you see boneless pork loin on sale at the store, buy some. I snagged 7.34 pounds at $1.77/lb. for a total of $12.99. Any time I can get animal protein for less than $2/lb. these days, I feel like I've won a prize.


2) With a very sharp knife slice it in 1/2" to 1" chops, depending on how thick you like them. This roast yielded 23 fairly thick chops. For our household of seven, that's three meals worth. For your house it may be more.


3) Double wrap the portions you want to save and take a Sharpie and write how many of what and the date on each. That way, they don't become the "mystery meat" that's been in the freezer for a year (which ultimately wastes your money, since then you don't use them). Put them in the freezer.


4) Take the remainder for this evening and make something yummy like rosemary pork.


It's just that easy! You can do the same with other cuts of meat. For example, the few times a year sirloin roasts go on sale I will buy one and slice it up. The results aren't the same as aged sirloin steaks, but they're decent, especially for things like stroganoff. And saving a couple of bucks per pound is worth five minutes of your time, don't you think?

Don't expose yourself in public

I love Facebook. I really do. I like seeing what my family, friends, colleagues and favorite musicians are up to. I like reconnecting with people I've lost touch with. I like being able to follow some of my favorite artists without logging into the seamy nightworld that MySpace has turned into. But there's one thing I've stopped using on Facebook, and stopped accepting invites for, and that's Facebook "applications." You know them - the various things you get invited to by friends, or that are advertised on the sides of the page. Farmville. Mafia Wars. RealAge. IQ tests, personality tests, "Which Loony Tunes character are you?" tests.

I don't have a problem with these applications because I'm a curmudgeon or that they're a time suck - to each their own. I have a problem with them because when you accept their terms and conditions you are giving the application (more accurately, the company that wrote it) access to your profile and all sorts of information about you. Your age, your location, your contact info, your friends - everything about you in Facebook. And they can use that information for any purpose whatsoever. In fact, you don't have to do anything - you can be used for marketing purposes simply because your Facebook friends have accepted an application's terms and conditions, and you are in their friend list, so that app is free to mine whatever it can about you, too.

Don't believe me? Check out this article about RealAge:

But while RealAge promotes better living through nonmedical solutions, the site makes its money by selling better living through drugs.

Pharmaceutical companies pay RealAge to compile test results of RealAge members and send them marketing messages by e-mail. The drug companies can even use RealAge answers to find people who show symptoms of a disease — and begin sending them messages about it even before the people have received a diagnosis from their doctors.

While few people would fill out a detailed questionnaire about their health and hand it over to a drug company looking for suggestions for new medications, that is essentially what RealAge is doing.

Or this one on We're Related:

As one of the most widely used applications on Facebook, We’re Related, is at the forefront of a new class of internet services that ride on the back of the popularity of social networks.

The service, which claims 15m active users each month, seeks to identify and link family members who are already on the network, even if they are only distantly related.

However, Facebook users who sign up for We’re Related are given little idea how much of their personal information will be siphoned by the application, or – in the soothingly benign language of social networking – with whom this information will be “shared”.

New users are asked to give a blanket approval to let the application “pull your profile information, photos, your friends’ info and other content that it requires to work”. The application then appears to give itself the power to release this information to anyone else on Facebook – even if users have set stricter privacy settings to limit access to their personal data.

[I don't really understand the use of We're Related, since the basic Facebook functionality allows you to tag people as direct relatives anyway.]

Yet another article states it quite clearly:

Ultimately, deciding whether you should take an online quiz comes down to a question of trust: Are you comfortable putting your information--personal or financial--into the owner's hands? Remember, even if you don't directly input data, it can be passed along. Such is the case with Facebook, where just opening an application automatically grants its developer access to your entire profile. And don't assume that the developer isn't going to use the information within.

"The very intimate and detailed nature of the information featured on Facebook profiles makes such a database very valuable to marketers," says Guillaume Lovet, a senior manager with security company Fortinet.

And all that doesn't even count the out-and-out scams perpetrating via Facebook:

It may sound like a hip new emo band (or a somewhat old e-mail scam), but the Nigerian 419 will do more than just offend your ears--it'll also empty your wallet. The moniker refers to a scam dating back decades that has recently entered the social network scene.

Back to Beny Rubinstein. A couple of months ago, Rubinstein received some alarming Facebook messages from a friend and fellow tech professional.

"[He said] he was in the UK and was robbed, and needed $600 to fly back to Seattle," Rubinstein recalls.

The messages came both in Facebook-based IMs and in e-mail. They included details such as family members' names, making the notes appear all the more authentic. It wasn't until 2 hours and $1100 later that Rubinstein realized what had happened: Someone had hijacked his buddy's account, contacted his friends, and--at their expense--made off like a bandit.

I think I've run a fairly typical experience curve with Facebook. Tentatively signing up at the recommendation of a family member or friend (I forget who), then finding some other people I know, then throwing myself enthusiastically into snow ball wars (an application), Pieces of Flair (an application), We're Related (an application), various quizzes (applications) and on and on. But at some point those annoying terms and conditions clauses that appear when adding every new application started bothering me, and then the articles I kept stumbling across started to make me paranoid. Now I've cleansed my profile and locked it down pretty tight. And so can you. Knowledge is the key, and the most helpful hints may be contained in 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know. Go read it, then go implement what it suggests. I have.

So, I'm glad to be your Facebook buddy. Please comment on my status updates, tag me in funny photos, invite me to be a part of your "My ten favorite jellies and jams" meme. But please don't be offended if I ignore your invitation to suck on your lollipop, help you whack someone in Mafia Wars, or tend a pretend farm, or save the planet by planting fake plants. I'm sure they're all fun and innocuous ways to pass some time, but the risk of unwanted side effects via privacy leakage is just too great. Sorry about that.

Caveat Facebooker.

[That said, I still can't bring myself to delete the Pieces of Flair app - but I should! Actually, I did that, too, about an hour later.]

Roasted tomato and garlic sauce, now with pictures!

Earlier this year I posted my recipe for roasted tomato and garlic pasta sauce for my daughter Meghann. When she was out visiting with the grandkids in August I made a double batch so she could watch and we decided to turn it into a photo blog. So here's a repeat, only this time with pictures (all pictures by Meghann McLeroy).

Preheat oven to 400°.

First, get yourself a bunch of Roma tomatoes (this recipe is the main reason why I planted seven Roma plants this year). The nice thing about this recipe is the tomatoes don't have to be perfect. Some can be a little early. Some can be a bit over-ripe. Blemishes are OK (but not bug-eaten parts - ew). You're not making a Caprese salad, you're making pasta sauce, so the looks aren't that important.

How much is a bunch? About this much:

I dunno - maybe four or five dozen?

You'll also need some peeled garlic cloves. Figure on four or five per dozen tomatoes. If you don't like garlic, you're reading the wrong blog.

How the Lehmer household remains vampire-free

Wash the tomatoes and then slice them in half lengthwise.

Careful with those fingers!

Put the halves in a large plastic container.

Lots more to go

When the container's almost but not quite full, liberally drizzle on some extra virgin olive oil.

Actually, don't be as skimpy as the picture shows

Now you have a bowlful of oily tomatoes.

Shiny!

Put a lid on the bowl and holding on tightly shake it up real good to distribute the oil all over the tomatoes and loosen up the seeds.

Shake, shake, shake

Put all the tomatoes from the bowl on a cookie sheet that you don't care much about and make sure they are all turned split side up.

We ended up with two pans like this

There will be juice and oil left over in the bowl. Drizzle it all over the tomatoes.

Forecast for today - drizzle

Spread out the garlic cloves by putting them into the little "cups" formed when some of the tomato halves lost their seeds.

Mmmm - garlic

Salt.

Pass the hypertension

Put in the oven for an hour. If you can't fit both pans on one level then you will need to swap them at the half hour mark and probably cook them a little longer.

In you go!

Go get some fresh herbs out of the garden. Dried herbs will work if you don't have fresh. I like to use basil (both green and purple here) and oregano.

Pretty

Wash the herbs and trim the leaves off the stems (discarding the stems, obviously).

Mixed greens

Fortify yourself for the work ahead.

Named for a famous city and island

Peel and quarter two onions.

Yellow, white, red - whatever

Check the tomatoes periodically. You want them to get a bit browned or even blackened (we like some of them to get blackened).

The smoke detector will tell you when you're done

The batch I made last night was actually more blackened than this. We like the dark crunchy bits.

Mmmm - carbon

For each batch put some dry red wine in the blender. There will be at least one batch per cookie sheet.

About this much per batch

Put in half the onions.

Time for a bath, guys

Add a bit of pepper.

Tasty

And half the herbs.

In you go!

Scrape the tomatoes off the cookie sheet. Make sure to get plenty of the blackened stuff off the bottom. This is why I say to use cookie sheets you don't care about.

Nice and roasted

Put the tomatoes in the blender plus any juice and oil left in the cookie sheet.

Getting all the good stuff

Put the lid on the blender (duh).

Hold on tight!

Blend.

Not too fast nor too slow

You want it to end up being the consistency of, well, pasta sauce.

Almost done

Check to see if it's done.

It's done

Now freeze it in containers big enough for one night's supper each. You could probably also can it, but two cookie sheets doesn't make enough to really bother with all that hassle (I'd estimate the amount shown here would make five or six pints or two-plus quarts). When you're ready to use a batch nuke it on defrost level to get it softened up and then heat as usual for pasta sauce. You can fry hamburger meat and then add the sauce to that as well. It goes especially well when served on pasta as a side to steaks or Italian sausages.

Enjoy!

Lotsa hotsa

The following is a recipe for some Habanero hot sauce I made a while back. This has been a terrible year raising tomatoes (the summer was too cool), so the Romas haven't done well but for some reason the Habanero and Tabasco pepper plants have been abundant. I haven't been able to make as much roasted tomato and garlic pasta sauce and salsa as I would like, but I am rolling with the punches and making lots of hot things. Like Habanero sauce.

As is my preference when making something new I searched the Web, found some different recipes, saw what was the same and what was different, and then took off in my own direction. It's just better that way. Let's get started.

First, you'll need a lot of Habaneros. Here's my version of "a lot":

Lotsa hotsa!

Ain't they purty? There's a bit over four dozen there. While we're at it, let's just get all the ingredients out of the way:

• 48 Habaneros
• 2 onions, halved and sliced
• 8+ cloves of fresh minced garlic
• 4 Tbs vegetable oil
• 2 cups carrots, chopped
• 2 cups distilled white vinegar
• 1 cup lime juice (I didn't have any fresh limes, so I just used a whole bottle of lime juice - I know, what a poseur!)
• salt
• fresh lemon basil (a new love of mine, which I got courtesy of Freecycle).

Here's a pic of everything:

Everything ready to go.

A closeup of the lemon basil. As with all citrus-y flavors, it goes well with the fruity-nuclear-bombness of the Habaneros.

Lemon basil.

Sauté the onions and garlic in the oil.

Onions and garlic - mmmm.

Cook the onions and garlic until brown.

Caramelized onions and garlic - good!

Add carrots and continue to sauté.

Smellin' really good now!

Cook the carrots until brown and soft (which means the onions and garlic are going to caramelize and get really brown and sweet - good!).

Getting toasty.

In the mean time, fortify yourself for the journey ahead.

Mmmm...Martinis!

Make sure and remove the stems from the lemon basil leaves. [Or should I say the lemon basil leaves from the stems? Anyway, you want the leaves, not the stems.]

Pretty.

When everything in the skillet is fairly brown, put it in a blender plus the rest of the solid ingredients (i.e., minus the liquids) in the blender. I did this in halves. Purée. [Don't you just love the gratuitous French accents on letters? I do. That's an accent aigu in "purée" and "sauté," not to be confused with an accent grave.]

Ready to go!

Let's give it a whirl!

Just about done.

Put the salt in a bowl. Oh, wait - you may have put it in the blender because it's a "solid ingredient." No worries, mate.

"Pass the hypertension," as my dad says.

Mix in the purée along with the liquids (you know, the vinegar and lime juice). Stir until it is all mixed up (sorta like your teenagers).

The finished product.

Now, you could either (a) bottle or can this using the hot water bath method (lots of vinegar and lime juice to make it acidic and safe) or (b) do what I did and freeze it in quantities you'll use in a reasonable amount of time once you move one of the tubs from the freezer to the fridge.

Ready to freeze.

That's all there is to it. It came out pretty tasty. Pedestrians will think this recipe is hot, most hot heads will think it pedestrian. Either way it is yummy. I've been enjoying it, that's for sure.

California oddities

So, there are two weird things that have struck me while here this week.

1) The hotel I am staying at (Staybridge Suites - nice) has exit signs high on the walls but also down near the floor. In fact, there are many more exit signs near the floor than those high up. I am guessing this is so that in a fire if you're crawling along the floor you can see the signs. Good idea. I have never seen this before, so I am wondering if this is some zoning thing or if the hotel chain does it at all their hotels?

[Click pics to enlarge.]

2) All the nearby hills are cut through with various drains, I am guessing to help carry away the runoff during the mudslide season (as opposed to the wildfire season, which is now). I was walking to the restaurant last night and noticed this one running up the hill toward a parking lot. It would seem normal in that situation, something to help drain off the lot. But if you click on the pic and look at the top of the ditch, you'll note it's closed off. And there are no other pipes or ways water can enter that I could see. So the drain would simply drain itself! Very odd, and I still don't have an explanation.