DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

(subtitle: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen)

Universally loved by serious cooks, On Food and Cooking is an immensely valuable resource for anyone interested in the process of cooking. Cooking is largely a chemical process, and McGee explains it clearly, with nifty diagrams and electron-microscope photographs to illustrate the points.

Bread bakers will especially enjoy the section on flours and doughs. McGee answers questions of the nutrition of wholegrain vs. high-extraction flours, gluten development and dough breakdown from overkneading, why bread stales (and how to prevent and reverse it, to some extent). Some of this material may be familiar to readers of Crust & Crumb, because Peter Reinhart is a fan of McGee’s work.

Other sections include: dairy product (cream whipping, egg storage and grading, cheese making, etc.), sauces, beer brewing, wine fermentation, meat storage and cookery.

If you’re a casual cook with no interest in the underlying science, you’ll have no use for this book other than impressing your kitchen-geek friends. But, if you spend your weekends brewing beer or wine, making cheese, barbecueing, or baking, you’ll find many valuable tips here.

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Parks Canada has launched a bear-awareness campaign, called Year of the Great Bear. So although we hadn’t yet experienced a live bear, we were not surprised to experience bears in the media — to hear that bear activity had caused several campgrounds and hiking trails to be closed during our visit. (The best way to deal with a wild bear, apparently, is not to encounter it in the first place.)

We’d been in Canada for a few days, hiking around Kananaskis Country and Banff National Park. And although we hadn’t seen any bears, we had seen quite a bit of other wildlife — goats, elk, deer, ground squirrels, and to our misfortune a large number of a different type of animal — they have two legs, an upright stance, tend to carry a variety of photographic devices on straps, are often covered with synthetic fabrics, nylon packs, hats, sunglasses, etc., and travel via enormous metal boxes that spew great clouds of noxious black smoke, even when idling in parking lots.

Actually the tourists weren’t as thick as we’d feared, even in Banff, which is somewhat known for being overcrowded. But then we arrived at Lake Louise, a gorgeous blue-green lake sitting between the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise (hotel) and Victoria Glacier, and surrounded by mountains. The parking lot and the bit of lakeshore adjacent reminded me of nothing so much as Waikiki, with overweight tourists standing shoulder-to-shoulder, posing for cameras, squawking, and irritating the hell out of me. We immediately located the nearest trailhead and set out.

100 yards up the trail we saw a paper sign tacked to a tree: “Recent bear activity in vicinity! Proceed with caution!” It had rained recently, but not as recently as this paper sign had been hung… and we stopped to think. Proceed at risk of disturbing a bear family, or return to the zoo of uncaged beasts in the parking lot? It took only a moment to decide; I’ll take the risk of seeing a bear over the certainty of a mob of tourists any day.

The sign was a blessing. We didn’t see any bears, but we didn’t see any more tourists either. Near the end of the trail, we saw a few hikers coming in the other direction, but still the contrast between the hotel grounds (Waikiki on the lakeshore) and the trail was striking. In total, we saw only about four other hikers in two hours’ time.

Yes, it’s ironic that many folks go on vacation to wilderness areas in order to get away from people, and succeed only in meeting up with hundreds or thousands of others who are also trying to get away from people. Fortunately many tourists don’t hike, and of those that do, even fewer are willing to take strenuous hikes. Getting away from people is only as hard as challenging yourself to take the more difficult, or longer trail. It’s well worth the effort. But, ahhh, you may want to bring some pepper spray. And for sure don’t read any of these accounts of bear maulings before you go!

I’m typing this with black hands. Today was the annual neighborhood apple pressing — 30 people and about 1500 lbs of apples get together to make many gallons of juice and a mound of desiccated fruit flesh that takes six months to decompose.

So, why are my hands black? I have no idea. Something about the acid in the fruit, I guess. It takes a few days for the discoloration to wear off. My guess is, given my profession, my fingertips will become clean sooner than the rest of my hands.

To cap off the day of fruit-centric fun, we stopped by the Ace In The Hole Cider Pub for a few pints of Pear.

Anyone taking bets that the dancing monkey boy is on the verge of a massive coronary?

Seriously, check out the sweat rings, the pained grimace, and the way he tries to mask the fact that he can barely breathe. Bill Gates ought to be shopping for a new CEO right about now. And Ballmer is in desperate need of a healthier lifestyle.

(Thanks to camworld for the “developers! developers! developers!” link.)

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• Related humor

Sheldon Siegel worked at the law firm that was the target of the 101 California shooting, in which a disgruntled client used automatic weapons to kill 8 people. This event pushed Siegel to try to do some of the things he’d been postponing, such as writing a novel. Special Circumstances is the result.

This is a classic page-turner, combining a courtroom drama with aspects of the thriller genre. The text is eminently readable, demonstrating the work Siegel did to hone the “narrative voice” (as he documents on his website). Truly, it’s a pleasure to read — clear, fiesty, and quick, with memorable characters (who resurface in Siegel’s next book, Incriminating Evidence) and accurate (to my ear) court dialog. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it heartily.

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• Amazon (paperback)
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