Politicians Breaking the Law - Scandalous!

Campaign signs on a public street in Arlington

Anyone who's not in the sign business probably hasn't given much thought to the laws pertaining to signage.  If you're one of those people - let me tell you, the laws are extensive and can be complicated...and they extend to political campaign signage, too.

Here in the Commonwealth, we just had a gubernatorial election.  That's a pretty big deal, and it got a lot of attention...and a lot of signage.  State laws in Virginia allow political campaign signage on private property starting 75 days prior to an election, and mandate removal no later than 15 days after an election...on private property.  There's also an allowance for signage near polling locations on election day itself - not to be placed within 40 feet of the entrance.

However, maybe you've noticed all political campaign signage doesn't take up roots on private property.  Maybe you saw an occasional roadside sign...on a median or street corner.  I did a little research on the codes, and one government site says and I quote, "State law prohibits putting political campaign signs on roads and medians."

Wow. If I understand that correctly - that means our honest and trustworthy gubernatorial candidates (and pretty much all candidates for this and other offices, past and present) are breaking the law prior to even getting elected to office!

I'd love to call a politician breaking the law scandalous, but the number of people in line to be shocked by it would rather be short.  That said - is there a point to all this?

What stands out to me initially is a politician's blatant disregard for the law - minor or not.  After that, leaving the signs behind after the election shows a willingness to litter all over what the consituents call home.  Granted, it hasn't been 15 days since the election...but that regulation only applies to signs on private property - not the ones that were never supposed to be there in the first place.

Until the political funding/contribution laws get a much needed overhaul - the candidates were getting plenty of support last time I checked.  May I suggest you save some funding for after the election - to hire a few unemployed people to walk along the highway and pick up all your trash? That would be great...thanks.

Single Origin Ethiopia: Charbucks Strikes Again

When roasting coffee, stopping the roasting process at a lower temperature produces a lighter colored bean. It allows the flavors of the bean's origins to come through after the beans are ground and brewed. There's more to it than this - but I'm keeping this blog simple.

Allowing the beans to roast to a higher temperature produces (you guessed it) a darker colored bean. This produces toasty carbony flavors, and often a complex sweetness from the caramelizing of the natural sugars in the coffee. 

Coffees from some regions of the world seem to lend themselves better than others to a lighter roast.  This roast is often referred to as a "City Roast", or a little darker is a "Full City Roast". Ethiopia produces some of my favorite coffees, and when lightly roasted the resulting brew has amazing floral and fruity flavors. So when I heard Starbucks was releasing a single origin Ethiopian coffee - I was anxious to try it out.

I'm sad to report that the SBX Ethiopian is roasted too dark. Mind you - it's a delicious cup of coffee, but to roast Ethiopian coffee into dark roast territory destroys all the lovely happiness that occurs in a light roast.  

Starbucks makes plenty of dark roast coffees....so many, in fact, they earned themselves the nickname "Charbucks" from many of the coffee aficionado crowd. Not only do they not need another dark roast coffee in their lineup, but roasting Ethiopian this dark is senseless. 

I suppose after nearly falling in love with the Kati Kati blend SBX released a few months ago - my expectations for the single origin Ethiopian were unrealistically high. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble distinguishing a difference between this and their French Roast (although admittedly I'm finding it more interesting, and will surely try it again).  

SBX Ethiopian synopsis? Good coffee - yes. Better than the celebration of mediocrity that is Pike Place - yes. Good  Ethiopian - no.

Freezer Error

I babble about coffee incessantly.  Although some may find it annoying or monotonous, sorry; I have no intention of changing.  One of the side effects of all my drivel has been that people have come to think I am somewhat knowledgeable on the subject of coffee.  To that end - I'd say I know a few things, but have far more to learn than I keep between my ears.

Experience has taught me there are a fair number of misconceptions about coffee.  One that I see most often is storing coffee in the freezer.  There's a right way and wrong way to use your freezer for coffee storage, and most folks are doing it wrong.

The error occurs when you take coffee in and out of the freezer repeatedly - like for daily use.  This is a problem because coffee is porous...which is fine and dandy if you like flavored coffee.  Although I don't care for flavored coffee - the porous nature of the bean means it easily absorbs the flavored syrups and oils.  However, it also means it'll absorb other things...like the flavor of seafood or the moisture that your freezer produces. This moisture will steadily deteriorate the oils in coffee and make it taste freezer burned. Wrecking the oils wrecks the flavor.

So what's the right way to use the freezer?  If you buy a quantity of beans that's more than you will consume in a month or two, you are at risk of the flavor profiles in the coffee beginning to change from the coffee getting old and stale...this is the oils deteriorating.  To avoid this, seal the coffee in an airtight bag - getting as much air as possible out of the bag.  Then put it in the freezer and leave it alone (I double bag mine using the thick freezer bags).  When you're ready to use it - remove it and store it at room temperature.

Once out of the freezer, keep the beans in a dark place and sealed in an airtight container or bag.  I like containers with crock style lids - which I find regularly in thrift stores for a buck or two. I store containers inside a kitchen cabinet.  Furthermore, keep the beans whole until you're ready to brew.  The flavor profiles of coffee can begin to change within an hour of grinding, so avoid grinding in advance.  And for the love of all that is good - avoid the shared big commercial grinder at the stores...who knows what was ground in there before you put your coffee in?  Even a cheap $15 blade grinder used right before you brew is far superior to using the in-store grinder.

So keep it sealed, use it as close to the roast date as is possible, and never, never, ever keep it the refrigerator.  That's the worst.  Life's too short to drink cheap coffee...but good coffee is too expensive to not treat it right and get the most out of it.

Brewing the Funky Chicken

Sometimes I find myself purchasing a product purely because the packaging is cool.  That said, I make my living as a graphic artist - so you can understand why I might scrutinize package design a bit more than the average joe....and a package of joe is the subject at hand.

As a self-proclaimed coffee snob, I like to buy locally roasted coffees.  There's an organic food market not far from my home called Mom's (My Organic Market), and they have a nice variety of coffees roasted in Maryland and Virginia.  I frequently buy Equal Exchange coffee by the pound there - which is a fair trade coffee they sell by the pound.  It's a small batch roast coffee, and at 10 or 11 bucks a pound - it's hard to beat.

However - yesterday while picking up some beans I spotted a coffee I'd not noticed before.  The roaster was Red Rooster Coffee Roasters out of Floyd, VA - which is in far-out nowhere Southwest Virginia.  Aside from being a local small batch roaster, it was the packaging that roped me in. "Funky Chicken" is the name of the blend, under which it reads "For Medicinal Use Only"...which conjured up an involuntary chortle from me in the store.  Then I noticed they'd stamped a roast date on the bag and it was roasted just a few weeks ago...so I grabbed the bag and headed toward the register.

Upon opening the bag, I immediately noticed the beans showing a variety of different brown tones.  Small variations can sometimes just be the result of small batch roasting; it's hard to get a perfectly even roast with small batch.  However - this variation was more pronounced, indicating this was not the type of blend where a variety of beans are roasted together - but rather the type of blend where after the specific origin roasts are done, the roaster takes a scoop of this and a scoop of that, and mixes it all together.  Please note: I've never seen the inner workings of a small batch roaster - so this is purely a guess.  The smell was intoxicating - so into the grinder it went.  This was to be my morning coffee - which I normally do in a automatic drip coffee maker...and today was no different.

Back of the bag reads, "Intense flavor with plenty of body and a fruit finish."  I've had some intense coffees in my day, and I don't think that would be the word I use.  I did detect the fruity tones - Ethiopian or Tanzanian is possibly responsible for those.  Even though it's not intense, it's a really nice, mellow morning coffee with a sufficient caffeine punch.  I was not blown away, and am not rethinking the pecking order of my favorites...but it's surely nice enough to gift and I'll likely buy it again.  I'll give it a try in a pour over and pull a shot or two of espresso with it and report back if something miraculous happens.

The Salsa

When Herndon, VA's legendary Mexican joint The Tortilla Factory closed down after over 30 years of fabulous food, there were a whole lot of saddened people.  We were sad we could no longer dine in what had become a Herndon institution...but mainly because we could no longer get the chips and salsa.  The chips were home made and sensational...but the salsa was something really special.  The restaurant closure left us standing in the shadow of a huge condimental void, and my old friend Mason and I decided; the only way to step out of the darkness was to make our own salsa...and so the pursuit to replicate the Tortilla Factory salsa began.

After some digging (and bothering people who used to work at the restaurant), we got our hands on what we were told was "the" recipe.  Mason and I experimented with it, and we have both implemented subtle variations to the recipe we started with.  At first, my variations came in the name of trying to replicate the Tortilla Factory's concoction...but along the way it just became a pursuit of damn good salsa - and many have told me that's what I make.

Some kitchen notes about the recipe:
• The recipe we got didn't have mixing instructions. I use a blender, and I put the cilantro in first.  Once all the ingredients are in, I just pulse it until everything's mixed and chopped nicely...being careful to not liquify.  I like it to have some texture.
• For those that don't have a kitchen scale, 3-4 oz of cilantro is about what most grocery stores sell as a bunch, and that's with just the very bottoms of the stems trimmed off. It's going to seem like an awful lot of Cilantro - but roll with it. 
• I have made several batches that ended up with a dominance of onion flavor. To prevent this - use a medium onion on the smaller side, or use a half or 3/4 - depending on the strength of the onion. 
• Fresh tomatoes might seem like a better idea than canned, but I've tried it both ways and with numerous varieties of tomatoes, and my conclusion is the canned is not only easier but tastes better.  Furthermore, I always use San Marzano tomatoes.  They're more expensive, and worth it.

1 28oz can tomatos
1 Medium sweet onion - chopped
2 tsp prepared chopped fresh garlic
2 tsp oregano (Mexican oregano preferred)
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tbs black pepper - fresh ground
1 tbs Tabasco
3-4 oz cilantro - chopped
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup corn oil

A note about chips.  The Tortilla Factory's chips were very crisp and thin.  The closest Mason and I have found are a brand called Xochitl.  I find them at Whole Foods and Wegman's consistently.  I've heard Walmart and Giant sell them, too - but have looked and never seen them there.  An alternate is Tostitos Cantina Thin & Crispy.  Those are available pretty much everywhere.

If you try it - I invite you to come back and let me know what you think.  Also - please leave a comment if you made any variations and/or substitutions! 

Lack of Discretion

I look at Facebook pretty much every day...often several times a day.  I like to see what my friends are up to, see pictures, quotes, humor, art, and read about the events that surround their lives.

Unfortunately, there are those who feel like Facebook is their own personal editorial column regarding issues relating to politics, religion, and other matters I feel deserve a greater degree of discretion.

Yesterday, I came across the following quote - and although laced with humor, there is a layer of truth I can't ignore.

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Religion is like a penis. It’s fine to have one, and it’s fine to be proud of it.  But please don’t whip it out in public and start waving it around....and please don’t try to shove it down my throat.

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Incidentally, I generally feel the same way about vegetarianism, politics, and other personal beliefs. Just because you have access to a public forum doesn't mean you should haphazardly use it as a vehicle to gain acceptance for your personal beliefs. Consider that it might be more empowering to keep your personal beliefs personal, rather than to blindly seek acceptance.

The Quad Cruiser

I seem to blog so much about coffee that I have neglected another of my life's loves; bicycles.  I developed my love of bicycles in my early teens. I turned 13 in 1980, and BMX had really started gaining popularity.  My friends and I all rode BMX bikes, and every dime I made on my Washington Post paper route went into bike parts. When I was 17, I scored a job at the local bike store as a mechanic...and my love intensified.  Soon after came a road bike, then a mountain bike, and...well - you get the idea. 

In the early 2000's, I began restoring old bikes as a hobby. First a road bike, then a BMX bike...but the BMX bikes became a hobby.  In fact, vintage BMX has become an industry in itself. One of the bicycle companies that latched onto the vintage BMX popularity was SE Bikes - who was one of the very first successful BMX companies. SE began releasing bikes with old school flavor made with current technology...most called them "retro new school".

This brings me to my BMX cruiser - a 2011 24" SE Quadangle.  The original SE Quadangle (made in the late 70's) was made for a 20" wheel.  Although the 20" wheel is still the most common for BMX bikes today, us old guys seem to like bikes with larger wheels for comfort...and I surmise SE knew what the target market was when they decided to make a 24" retro Quadangle.  The first complete 24" Quad came out in 2009, and it was white with chrome accents. In 2010, they did a red framed version with chrome and blue accents.  In 2011 - they went black with gold accents with a touch of chrome...and I could no longer resist.  I waited a while after the release and scored a great online deal.

My only complaint about this beauty is this; out of the box - I found it to be a bit "overbranded".  I just felt there were too many parts branded by SE: the bubble logo grips, bubble logo chainwheel, etc.  I have a pretty solid memory of my multiple bikes and friend's bikes when we were kids, and they were customized - not bikes with every part branded by one company.  So - I started customizing this bike. So far I've changed out the bars, pedals, grips, seat, seat post, and seatpost clamp, as well as adding front brakes. 

I don't get to ride it much - my vintage road bike gets most of the exercise duties.  For the most part, I bring it out on nice, sunny days...putter around on it, and smile a lot.  This coming Sunday - April 21st - a whole bunch of people who love old school BMX bikes like me are going to gather for a cruise through DC.  If we have a turn out like last year's gathering, it'll be around 30 or 40 of us...and we'll putter around, and smile a lot.

Thank you, Keurig!

Those of you who know me might be saying, "Wow Jay.  Blogging about coffee again?  How....different."

Yeah, yeah - I know.  My life is pretty boring, and subsequently the things on my mind come from a limited number of topics.  That said, some of you now might be saying, "Ummm....dude?  That's a nice picture - but it's not a Keurig."  And you would be correct....but read on.

The Keurig coffee maker is a single cup coffee brew system, and if you've never heard of it - surely you're living under a rock or despise coffee.  You might think with a name like Keurig that it's from some exotic European country, but the 1990 start-up happened in Massachusetts.  Green Mountain Coffee Roasters bought the company in 2006...and that's when the popularity really started to take off.  They are now immensely popular, and the ready to brew "K-cups" that contain the coffee are available in just about every grocery and big box store you can think of.

Admittedly - a Keurig machine makes a decent cup of coffee...and it's damned convenient. Most machines have a reservoir tank that keeps water ready to use, so you just pop a K-cup in the machine, prop your cup under the spout and press the brew button.  Ta-da!  A minute or two later, you've got a delicious, fresh brewed cup of coffee.

The main reason I've never jumped on this bandwagon is because I love to buy coffee that's roasted locally, and roasted recently...preferably within the last few weeks.  Furthermore, I like to grind right before I brew, as the flavor profiles in coffee can change within an hour after after grinding. K-cups are mass-manufactured, and there's no way to know fresh it is.  There are cups you can load yourself...but that kinda shoots the convenience factor in the foot.

So I still use old-school, conventional methods to make coffee. I have a french press, a pour-over, an espresso machine, and most mornings I use a good 'ol drip coffee machine.  10 or 12 years ago I bought my first drip coffee machine with a thermal carafe.  I find these to be vastly superior to the old glass carafe versions because the coffee doesn't sit on a burner, and therefore doesn't cook down into a coffee reduction with flavors resembling asphalt.

A few days ago, my 8 year-old Mr. Coffee drip coffee maker kicked the bucket.  I've historically been lax about running a vinegar solution through the machine regularly to prevent mineral buildups, and it finally caught up with me on this one.  However, it was only 50 bucks, and 8 years ain't bad for a $50 kitchen appliance that gets used almost every day.

Being a little short on cash, I decided against buying a high end machine right now - and instead decided to go for the band-aid approach at the local Goodwill thrift store.  What I found is what you see in the picture; a stainless thermal Mr. Coffee complete with removable water tank and water filtration system.  I examined it pretty closely in the store, looking for the mineral build-ups that took the life of my last one.  Not only were there no mineral build-ups, but I couldn't even see any coffee residue...nothing! Everything including the water filter looked to be unused.  Brand new...just no box.  They had it marked $30....pricey for a thrift store, but I guessed there was no way I'd get one with a box for that price - so I nabbed it.  I brought it home, cleaned it well, and fired it up...and it works beautifully.

Why am I telling this story and what's the connection to the Keurig machines?  Well - I have Keurig to thank for this find, and I'll tell you why.

Because Keurig machines have become so incredibly popular, once people are hooked on them - they look at their old coffee equipment and say, "Now what the hell am I going to do with that?"  I'm sure a lot of borderline hoarders stash the old machines in the closet or pantry...but lots of them end up getting donated to a thrift store.  I'm a thrift store regular...you never know what you'll find in those places. Sometimes it's stuff I want for myself, and other times it's something I'll stick on eBay and sell for profit.  I started noticing really nice coffee equipment flooding into thrift stores several years ago and dubbed it, "The Keurig Effect".

Thanks to the Keurig effect, I now have a perfectly functioning burr grinder and a stainless thermal drip coffee maker. The retail value of those two machines is around $200, but the thrift store price was $40.

Thank you, Keurig.