works of wanderlust

Category: cast iron guy

  • Moka Express

    In my quest to find a great replacement for my afternoon cup of coffee, having ditched the pod machines and spent a solid year tuning and enjoying my pour over game, Santa was kind enough to bring me a moka pot for Christmas this year.

    And I’ve been having a great, well-caffeinated time learning to use it.

    As I understand it, the moka pot is a bit old fashioned. Originating in Italy, it was a popular home brewing gadget after the Second World War but prior to the proliferation of the drip machine.

    A three part contraption, the funnel-filter in the middle is filled with ground coffee and as the water boils in the bottom chamber it pressure-rises through and up, percolating and filling the upper chamber with espresso-like coffee.

    The result is not a true espresso, though it’s close. An yet it’s much stronger than drip coffee.

    I’ve been mixing hot-to-boiling water into mine at a ratio of roughly 1 part moka brew to 2 parts water, and the result is an almost-Americano-like drink that is full of flavour and body in a way that even my best drip coffee pour overs have trouble achieving.

    About a scoop and a half of ground coffee fills the filter and less than ten minutes on my simmer burner has a steaming cup of better-than-average-joe in my mug and ready to fuel the afternoon office push of video meetings and budget plotting and government paperwork.

    None of this is push button, but between my pour overs (which are cheap, fast, and simple) and my moka pot americanos (which are slower, use a bit more raw ingredients, but overall tastier) I think I’m narrowing in on some old fashioned solutions to a modern problem: single serve simple afternoon coffee for the work-from-home desk jockey.

    At the end of the day, my whole scheme here is one of reducing the number of plastic, disposable pods I formerly used to create mediocre (and relatively expensive) afternoon cups. Pour overs and moka pots are about exploring something quick and easy in the coffee brewing effort.

    And overall I’m rating this adventure quite high.

    Also… the Coffee Singularity Has Arrived

    I asked ChatGTP how to make coffee with a moka pot. Here’s it’s answer:

    A Moka pot, also known as a stovetop espresso maker, is a simple and traditional way of making coffee. Here’s the basic process for using a Moka pot to make coffee:

    1. Fill the bottom chamber of the Moka pot with cold water, up to the level of the pressure valve.
    2. Add ground coffee to the metal filter basket in the middle chamber, tamping it down lightly.
    3. Assemble the Moka pot by placing the middle chamber with the coffee and filter basket on top of the bottom chamber with the water. Make sure the gasket and filter plate are properly in place.
    4. Place the Moka pot on the stovetop over medium heat. Do not use high heat or let the water boil.
    5. As the water in the bottom chamber heats up, it will begin to create pressure, forcing the water through the coffee and into the top chamber. Once the coffee has started to fill the top chamber, you can hear a gurgling noise, at this point you can remove it from the heat to prevent the coffee from getting burned.
    6. Once all the water has passed through the coffee, the pot will make a distinctive “hissing” sound, indicating that the coffee is ready. Carefully pour the coffee into cups, being careful not to burn yourself on the steam or hot metal.

    Note that, Moka pot often extract a strong coffee with a bold, rich flavor and a thick crema on top. Also remember, to clean the pot after each use, to ensure that you’ll always get the best flavor out of your coffee.

  • Scratch Soup

    Regular readers may recall that following a hearty New Years Eve dinner with friends, I upcycled the leftover beef bones and made a big pot of new years stock.

    Beef stock.

    Yum.

    …which, of course, can be used for all sorts of amazing things, and in particular homemade soup.

    I make soup quite frequently, but claiming that I follow any sort of recipe is quite far from reality.

    I tend to make scratch soup.

    Soup. From scratch. From whatever.

    For example, the scratch soup I made recently from my (also recently) made beef stock looked a little something like the photo below:

    Scratch soup has a little of this. And a little of that. And a little of this other thing, cooked together into a lovely, luscious meal in a bowl.

    For example, this bowl of scratch soup looked a little something like this:

    a (kinda) recipe

    2 cups beef stock
    2 cups of water
    1 tablespoon of flour
    1 tablespoon of olive oil
    handful leftover roast beef chunks
    the leftover peas and carrots from dinner
    a bit of leftover chopped onion
    the remains of that bag of dried pasta
    salt, pepper, and a squirt of hot sauce

    Using up leftovers, scrounging bits of vegetables from the refrigerator, gauging spices, and adding bits that make texture and flavours and spicyness to what you and your culinary audience likes… this is what makes a good scratch soup.

    Tomorrow’s soup might look a lot different. For example, I know we’ve got a half can of black beans, a partial bag of gnocchi and a leftover sausage in the fridge. Sounds good to me, but the day after that those same ingredients will be gone and I’ll be working with a new collection.

    Scratch soup is whatever you make it.

    Maybe you use leftovers.

    Maybe you keep a few key ingredients handy or frozen nearby.

    Maybe you go simple.

    Maybe you love complexity.

    Ultimately it’s your scratch, to itch with whatever you think would make a great soup.

  • Suburban Ski Day

    A sunny Sunday afternoon in January was the perfect day to go check out a few kilometers of trails through a local green (winter white) space in the Edmonton suburbs.

    I thought Sundays were for run days, you ask?

    That too.

    But with my knee-hab progressing at the snails pace that injured ligaments are wont to do, I made my rounds at the gym this morning logging some klicks on the stationary bike then logging a couple klicks of running intervals on the treadmill and…

    Those ski trails through the vast swath of snow in the utility corridor were calling.

    By chance we live near a utility corridor. There are at least two of these in the city that run laterally, east to west, across the suburbs. About fifty meters wide and spanning the width of the whole city, ish, their purpose is to leave some big open space to run transmission powerlines or major infrastructure without going over, around or through homes. And since there only a minimal day-to-day danger associated with well constructed infrastructure, the utility corridors become huge greenspaces where the only development that can legally occur is an asphalt path or an unfixed trash bucket.

    If you live right up against one of these corridors (and many people do) you are, of course, dealing with the generally unsightly view of massive power transmission towers out your back window.

    If (instead, like me) you live just a few blocks away, you are less bothered by the view but still close enough to walk to a place where long straight asphalt trails make great running paths or groomed ski trails emerge mysteriously in the winter and stretch for kilometers upon kilometers of gently rolling straightaways.

    We parked in the recreation centre parking lot adjacent to where the ski trails passed and hopped aboard, exploring for an hour of exhausting skiing on a Sunday afternoon.

    My knee was a bit tender from my morning workout, but in the end it was a perfect day for some low-impact outdoor sport, and a bit of suburban skiing adventure, too.

  • adventure dog adventure

    This may seem a bit silly, but I started editing together little one minute videos of my dog and posting them on Youtube.

    We go for a long walk, explore some trails, capture some 4k footage on my phone or go pro camera.

    I have a couple of these that I did with my last dog but I regret not taking more video of her when she was still around.

    The thing is, people seem to like them.

    Most videos I post get a few dozen views from friends or family.

    These have crept into the 1000s.

    Such as, our adventure walk through the snowy local river valley:

    Or, the new one I posted earlier today about a wandering adventure through some local suburban trails:

    I know she’s cute, but the interest has caught me off guard a little bit.

    … in a good way, of course!

    Check them out and tell me what you think. Cute dogs are an easy sell online? Or are people suddenly vibing for some dog-meets-world video fun?

  • the three buck book club

    please note: This is an archive of a post that the author has flagged as containing a site feature or technical update that may no longer be active or in use.

    It only makes sense that a guy who cooks on cast iron, spends time in the outdoors and enjoys cooking clean, simple food would also be into vintage books, right?

    I decided that I want to read more in 2023.

    I want do do a lot of things in 2023, but reading is something that is pretty achievable.

    Book. Quiet. Go.

    That said, books are getting expensive. (Grumpy old man alert!) For example, I bought myself a few of the Witcher novels for a Black Friday sale and even discounted they still cost me something like $18 each for paperbacks. And while I love the library, I’ve always been something of a slow, scattershot-type reader and tend to need to renew every book two or three times, or I end up returning it and never finishing it. I also got into e-books for a while but have resorted back to the tactile paper novel for things that are not work-related.

    So, spend a lot of money on books? Read less? Ugh! What’s a guy to do?

    One solution: I was at the local used bookshop on my lunch break the other day. I was hunting for something very specific, but then on a whim started picking out other books that caught my eye…. books that fit a particular set of characteristics:

    1. They were all science fiction
    2. Based on copyright dates, every one of them were written and published before was old enough to really get into reading proper novels, so say mid-80s and prior vintage stuff,
    3. Each of them plot summarized some absolute cheese, camp, cornball, classic sci fi (which is kinda my vibe recently)
    4. None were going to cost me more than $3 per book… used of course

    In other words, I had the makings of a 2023 project in my hands, right there at the cash register.

    The Three Dollar Book Club was born.

    How many of these old campy books from the last century could I read through this year?

    Would people be interested in semi-serious reviews of corny old books?

    When could I start reading?

    What I’m trying to say is that if you’re the kind of person who cooks on cast iron, spends time in the outdoors and enjoys cooking clean, simple food … are you also, maybe into vintage books? Or at least, into reading about a guy who finds himself with a small stack of three dollar used novels from the seventies and eighties?

    If so, you might be in the right place. Stay tuned.