Renger's Rantings

Clinton for VP, but not Hillary

2008-06-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

I think Barack Obama should pick a Clinton for Vice President. But not Hillary, or Bill, or even Chelsea. He should pick George Clinton!

The man has tons of experience from his days in Parliament. He'll be ready on day one!

I think I'll start a petition...

UPDATE: It seems like there has been some confusion about my suggestion that Barack Obama pick George Clinton for Vice President. The George Clinton I am talking about is a famous funk musician. Here is a link to George Clinton's bio on Wikipedia: George Clinton (funk musician).

George Clinton is not related to Bill Clinton in any way. Bill's brother is named Roger, not George, and he is not a famous funk musician, although he did once have a rock band, and he likes to live a rock 'n' roll lifestyle. He is an actor and is famous for his portrayal of the character Mayor Bubba in Pumpkinhead II. Here is a link to Roger Clinton's bio on Wikipedia: Roger Clinton Jr.

Also, I am not talking about this guy:

His name is George Clinton, but he was vice president twice already, so I don't think it would be fair to have him go again without giving P-Funk George a turn. And he died in 1812, so he is almost as old as John McCain. Here is a link to Vice President George Clinton's bio on Wikipedia: George Clinton (vice president)

Buying the Amazing NatureMill

2008-05-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

The model of NatureMill automatic composter I bought is the NatureMill PLUS. The manufacturer is NatureMill, and this is their website: http://www.naturemill.com/. NatureMill also makes the NatureMill PRO, which has a few convenience features, comes in fancy designer colors, has a longer warrantee, and costs $100 more than the NatureMill PLUS. They also make the Pet-Friendly Nature Mill, which is specifically tuned to process pet waste. The Pet-Friendly Nature Mill can also be used for kitchen waste. Like the PRO, it also costs $100 more than the NatureMill PLUS.

You can order the products straight from the manufacturer on their website. There are other online vendors as well. The manufacturer’s website lists a few brick-and-mortar retail dealers. I did not see a significant difference in price between any of these different sources --- they were all selling it for within about $5 of the manufacturer’s list price. I did see one online vendor that was exorbitantly overpriced, so obviously don’t pay more than list price!

I wanted to actually see and touch one of these things before I bought it, and I didn’t want to pay for shipping or have to wait while it shipped out, so I went to one of the retailers, Ecohome Improvement, in Berkeley. This is their website: http://www.ecohomeimprovement.com/. (Note: I don’t think they actually feature the NatureMill on their website, but they do have it in the store.) I paid $299.95 plus tax.

The salesperson I spoke to at Ecohome Improvement was knowledgeable and helpful. She owns a NatureMill PLUS and uses it at home, so she was able to share her first-hand impressions with me.

It looks like if you order the composter straight from NatureMill, you can get about 15% off each one if you buy three or more. That’s 50 bucks off of the PLUS model. It looks like you can team up with a few people to order three at one time, even if they are shipped to different places and billed to different people.

Mine came with internet coupons inside the box that allow people I refer to get $50 off the price of their NatureMill when they order online straight from NatureMill and use the coupon code. The code is CXJBL87.

If you want to order one of these things, be sure to save yourself 50 bucks and use the code. When you place the order, they will ask how you found out about NatureMill, at which point you enter my name, Eric Renger. According to info on the coupon and the website, if you use the code and reference me, I can get a free six-month supply of sawdust pellets. In order for me to claim my vast fortune in sawdust, after you place your order, I need to know your full name and your state and approximate order date. So if you know me, let me know about your order through the normal channels. If you don’t know me, but you feel grateful for having saved 50 bucks, please post a comment with the necessary info.

Whatever you do, please save yourself 50 dollars. If I can also get a six-month supply of sawdust, then it’s a win-win! Remember, Eric Renger sent you.

Disclaimer: I’m not trying to sell you a NatureMill, and I have no relationship with the NatureMill company. I don’t know enough about this thing yet to recommend it. This post and all other posts related to NatureMill, are just me rambling on about my experiences and are only for your information and amusement. (But if you decide on your own to get one, be sure to save yourself the 50 bucks and get me my sawdust.) If you are considering buying one and are not sure, then don’t do so on my recommendation at this point --- wait for the upcoming posts. I’m going to be detailing my experiences as I set up the NatureMill and use it.

The Amazing NatureMill

2008-05-23T10:12:00.001-07:00

I recently took another step on my journey into compost madness. I bought a NatureMill automatic composter.

The NatureMill automatic composter is an in-vessel composter for household food waste that automatically turns and aerates the compost. It is insulated, so it attains high temperatures. The high temperatures, mixing, and aeration create an optimized composting environment where the decomposition is supposed to be accelerated.

The NatureMill is supposed to be able to process up to about five pounds of food waste a day, or about 120 pounds per month (which is a lot more than we generate at this house). The NatureMill is also able to process things that are not appropriate for your outside compost bin or a worm bin. It can process cooked food, meat, cheese, and bread. There is a special model that is designed to handle pet waste as well. Those kinds of items are generally not appropriate for other kinds of home composting because of nuisances like smells, pests, or pathogens.

Because of the temperatures and aeration, the decomposition is supposed to occur very rapidly, and the food waste is not supposed to have time to get smelly. It also has an activated charcoal air filter to remove any residual odors. Because it is fully self contained, it is not supposed to attract any kinds of pests --- no rodents or flies. And because of the high temperatures, it is supposed to pasteurize pathogens.

At first glance, it seems like a silly high-tech solution to a process that can occur naturally with no technology whatsoever. But the fact is that even though “compost happens,” unless you put some knowledge and effort into controlling the environment and method of composting, you can invite some problems, especially when dealing with food waste. Yard waste is generally problem free, but I wanted a problem-free way to deal with the kitchen waste.

I had decided some time ago that I mostly did not want to process food waste through the regular outdoor Biostack bin. We have had rodents around the neighborhood at different times, and I did not want to be the cause of any of those problems. I don’t think rats or mice were feeding out of my bin or nesting in there, but I didn’t want to create any possibility of that happening. If you have been reading the blog, you know I did feed Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile a lot of food waste, but that was mostly for demonstration purposes. And whenever I did put food waste in the outdoor bin, I buried it deep and made sure to check it and aerate it frequently until it was completely decomposed. That can be a bit of a hassle.

I also have a worm bin that works for composting food waste. But the worm bin has its own set of hassles too. When everything is working perfectly, it can handle a maximum of about a half pound of food waste per day, but I was never able to get mine to actually accept that much. So it really didn’t process much waste. And when I did “overfeed” it, it tended to get fruit flies. Personally, I can deal with fruit flies and worms, but it’s not something most people would be interested in messing with.

If the NatureMill works as described, most of those problems should go away. I’ll be able to just open the lid of the NatureMill and dump in all the kitchen scraps, without having to pick through and pull out inappropriate ingredients the way I used to do with the worm bin. I’ll be able to put it all in, up to five pounds a day, without worrying whether I have “overfed” it the way I used to do with the worm bin. And because it is less of a hassle, and it sits right in the garage, outside the kitchen door, I’m more likely to actually take the food waste out instead of letting it “pre-compost” on the kitchen counter, a practice that Kathy never really seemed to appreciate very much. In fact, Kathy might actually take out the kitchen waste herself, which is not something she liked to do when it had to be buried in the Biostack or fed to the worms.

I think the NatureMill is going to be a bit like the gas barbeque I got a few years ago to replace the beloved charcoal Weber Kettle. I loved the old Weber and the authenticity of cooking over real burning charcoal, with real wood smoke, and real fire. But there were some inconveniences to it, and when I finally got the gas grill, I loved it too. I loved being able to turn the knob, hit a button and then just grill, rather than having to start a fire a half hour beforehand. I loved being able to adjust the temperature with a knob. I loved being able to cook something for over an hour without having to add more charcoal. A gas grill brings a lot of unnecessary technology to grilling for the sake of convenience, and I think the NatureMill is basically the same concept. I’m definitely going to keep the Biostack for yard waste, and I’ll probably keep the worm bin for the sake of harvesting worm castings. But, assuming everything works as described, I think I’m going to like the NatureMill for the convenience.

I’ll post more information about my experiences with the amazing NatureMill. Until then, for more info, you can check out the NatureMill website: http://www.naturemill.com/.

Diary of a Compost Pile - May 22

2008-05-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest in the ongoing series of diary entries by guest author Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile, the compost pile built during my Basic Compost Workshop. I am sorry for the long break, and I hope it did not disrupt the "narrative thread" too much. --- Eric

Dear Diary,

I know it’s been awhile, but I’m back --- it’s me, Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile. The last time I wrote, I was nearly out of my bin with excitement. After that amazing tumble and all the great food scraps, I got up to about 100 degrees the next day, and quickly climbed up to about 130. I held that for a long time. I was still at 130 on the day of the garden tour, nearly a week after the turning. I never got back up into those stratospheric high temps of my wild youth, but I was certainly able to hold my own.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a few more good turns, and I’ve had a few more additions of choice greens. One time it was a big bucket of food scraps, another time a bag full of Starbucks coffee grounds, and one time it was a bunch of fresh, green plants pulled from the garden --- Eric planted a load of California poppies for the tour and had to thin them as they got too big. That’s always the best --- fresh, green, succulent growth, buried deep in the pile. I can digest that kind of stuff in just a couple of days.

I don’t think I’ll ever get as hot as I used to, and I’m OK with that. Right now I’m just hovering around 80 degrees --- just about ambient temperature outside.

I’ve still got plenty of identifiable twigs and woody prunings. So I’m not what you would call “mature” pile yet, but I am getting there. Sometimes I look back at the way I was in the past, and I can’t believe how I behaved, the wild swings and ravenous appetites --- I am definitely maturing.

But now that I don’t get as fired up as I used to, I can start new hobbies, like collecting worms and other compost pile invertebrates. Maybe I’ll get a few roly-poly bugs to keep as pets. I wouldn’t mind a few more loads of coffee grounds to fill out the bin a bit. I’m definitely down a full third from where I started.

And maybe with a bit more greens I’d get a nice boost of temperature to remind me of the crazy old days. I might get up somewhere around 120 or so if I had a good turning and a good load of coffee. I’d like to finish off some of the coarser unfinished material I’ve still got before I get sifted and put out to pasture (or out to veggie garden, as the case may be).

-- FR

Bay-Friendly Garden Tour and Master Composter Graduation

2008-05-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, it’s been some time since I posted anything to the blog! This blog business is tricky because the times when you have the most interesting things to say are also usually when you have no time to post. I’ve been really busy lately hosting the Bay-Friendly garden tour and wrapping up my Master Composter training.

The Bay-Friendly Garden Tour went very well and was a lot of fun. According to the official count, we had 316 visitors to our garden. There were several thousand visitors on the whole tour.

It turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year so far, getting up toward 100. Fortunately, I had people making sure that I took a break from yammering at visitors now and then so I could have a drink of water and something to eat. Otherwise, left to my own devices, I probably would have passed out.

I think garden tours generally have a reputation for being sort of hoity-toity affairs, but the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour is designed to be very accessible and to give people real, practical examples of how to reduce garden waste, cut down on the use of chemicals, decrease runoff, conserve water, build healthy soil, provide habitat, and save energy. I've been interested in these things for some time, and it was great to be able to share my experiences with people. Almost everyone who came was looking for ideas to take home and try on their own.

I think the garden looked pretty nice for the tour. I did a lot of work to get everything cleaned up, and I think it paid off nicely. Here are a few pictures:

The place cleans up OK.

Everyone asked what the big red plant is. It is Jupiter’s Beard, sometimes called Red Valerian, botanical name centranthus ruber. It’s beautiful, but I had to warn everyone that it makes millions of little parachute seeds, and volunteers come up all over the place. A significant part of my weeding involves pulling up volunteer Jupiter’s Beard.

I never plant California poppies anymore because they reseed like mad, but I scattered some seeds this spring to fill in some empty spots, and they really looked nice for the tour, providing some nice spots of orange color.

The tour organizers gave us signs to highlight specific Bay-Friendly practices. This garden bed is on drip irrigation with each plant receiving water tailored to its exact needs --- some get none at all, some get a deep watering once a week, some get light water 2 times a week and some get heavy water two times a week, but nobody gets more than they need. So this area highlights how irrigation techniques can save water.

Here are the reliable old succulents.

And more succulents.

The azalea decided to cooperate and bloom the week of the tour.

The clivia cooperated as well.

Awwwww … what a lovely vignette.

Kathy and I yammering at guests in the vegetable garden.

In addition to prepping for and hosting the tour, I also finished my Master Composter class. I successfully graduated and am now a Master Composter.

This is the Master Composter Class of 2008, posing with our instructors.

I shared the honor of being the class Vermadictorian with another student. Here we are posing with Wriggly.

I’m sure many of you are wondering what ever happened to Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile. As I mentioned I was just a bit too busy for the blog for awhile, but, to be honest, I also felt maybe that pile had gotten a bit out of hand. Don’t get me wrong, she was no problem as a compost pile and was doing a great job of making compost. But Myrtle seemed to me to be having wild unpredictable mood swings, and I was never really sure what she might end up posting. If I had thought she was able to leave the bin, I probably would have sought a restraining order, because she seemed to have an unnatural obsession with me. Kinda freaky. It seems like she has matured a bit, and maybe it’s time to hear from her again. I’ll see if she has anything to say.

Diary of a Compost Pile - April 21

2008-04-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

Here is another in the ongoing series of diary entries by guest author Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile, the compost pile built during my Basic Compost Workshop. --- Eric

Oh, Diary!

You will not believe what just happened! Eric got back from his weekend away and he couldn’t keep his gloves off me! My God, it was amazing! Excuse me for being explicit, but he turned me top to bottom and totally forked my browns out! I tell you, it’s not the size of the garden fork, it’s how you use it, and now I know why they call him the Master Composter!

He really took his time with it too, lingering over every decomposing morsel in my steaming heap. Almost everything was decomposing nicely, just the way you want. Some of my straw had matted down a bit, so he gave that some special attention with the fork. So nice! And some of my more exotic ingredients, like the cardboard, had barely begun to decompose at all, so he tore those into smaller pieces. Oh, yeah, he did! All of the food scraps had completely disappeared, along with all the Roscoe poop. Everything smelled nice and earthy, just the way it should, with no stinky parts (except for a few of the straw mats, which he was polite enough not to mention).

He really knows what I like. He brought me that dead bouquet of wilted flowers I wanted.

He fed me a bucket of kitchen waste.

He added some miscellaneous yard trimmings, threw in a few more shovels of chicken manure, and made sure I was moist as a wrung-out sponge.

The whole time he was rolling me around the bin, he was singing a special song he had written just for me. It’s an adaptation of Bob Marley’s “Stir it up,” as sung to a compost pile. It made me feel so special.

Stir it Up, Compost Pile

Stir it up — Compost pile!
Stir it up — Come on, pile!
Come on and stir it up — Compost pile!
Stir it up — Oh, pile!

It's been a long, long time,
Since I built you in my bin;
And now that I stand near, I smell it all so clear,
There's some turnin’ we should do, pile, me and you.

Stir it up — Compost pile!
Stir it up — Come on, pile!
Come on and stir it up — Compost pile!
Stir it up — Oh, pile!

I will push the fork, and I’ll stoke your fire,
And then I'll satisfy your steamin’ heart's desire;
I will turn your food scraps, top to bottom;
All you got to do, pile, is to rot ‘em!

Stir it up — Compost pile!
Stir it up — Come on, pile!
Come on and stir it up — Compost pile!
Stir it up — Oh, pile!

I will quench you, pile, when you’re thirsty;
Heat you up, till you are hot;
Your humus, pile, is so tasty,
When your greens and browns all rot!

Stir it up — Compost pile!
Stir it up — Come on, pile!
Come on and stir it up — Compost pile!
Stir it up — Oh, pile!

This was really a turning point for me. My temperature had dropped to about 100 degrees.

After all the turning, my temperature dropped to only about 63 degrees.

But with all my new greens and oxygen, by tomorrow I will be a seething volcano of hotness again!

-- FR

Diary of a Compost Pile - April 18

2008-04-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

Today I bring you another in the continuing series of diary entries by guest author Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile, the compost pile built during my Basic Compost Workshop. --- Eric

Dear Diary,

It’s me, Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile … not that anyone cares.

I’m here losing my hotness by degrees and shrinking more and more every day, longing for any small display of kindness, perhaps a dead bouquet of wilted flowers or an old banana peel, anything ... and then I find out HE IS GOING AWAY FOR THE WEEKEND! I may be stuck here decomposing in the far end of the backyard, but NOBODY puts Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile in a corner!

I don’t want to cause a stink, but I could easily hold my breath for three days, deprive myself of oxygen, and go completely anaerobic! Let’s see how he likes that! Come back from his little getaway to find me smelling like a three-day-old rabbit turd omelet!

I know it would be a rotten thing to do, and I am too well balanced to ever get that funky, even if I wanted to, but I WON’T just be IGNORED!!!!

-- FR

Diary of a Compost Pile - April 17

2008-04-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

Here is another in the continuing series of diary entries by guest author Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile, the compost pile built during my Basic Compost Workshop. --- Eric

Dear Diary,

You know who it is.

I'm a little freaked out right now. I think I might be losing my hotness. My temperature today was only about 143.

I know 143 is still pretty hot, but I used to be 145! And I'm only less than a week old! How can this be happening? And I honestly think I'm beginning to shrink! I used to really fill out a bin, but look at me now. Does this bin make me look short?

Maybe I need to get some work done. I wouldn't mind being turned once in a while. But Eric doesn't even really come around at all anymore. Last night he left my lid off. What's that about? I mean, I don't want to be high maintenance, but I'm not a "no fuss" pile either!

-- FR

Diary of a Compost Pile - April 16

2008-04-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Today's post is another in the continuing series of diary entries by guest author Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile, the compost pile built during my Basic Compost Workshop. --- Eric

Dear Diary,

It's FR again.

Well, I seem to have reached the limits of my hotness. My temp today was about the same 145 degrees as yesterday.

I'm still pretty freakin' hot, but I always dreamed I would be more than this. Can this really be all there is? I'm wondering too if I've started to sag a little bit. After Eric topped me off on the 13th, I filled the bin to just a couple inches from the top, and now I must be at least 6 inches down from the top. What is happening to me?

Eric barely paid any attention to me at all --- just came in to check the thermometer and left.

-- FR

Diary of a Compost Pile - April 15

2008-04-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

I am running another in the continuing series of diary entries by guest author Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile, the compost pile built during my Basic Compost Workshop. --- Eric

Dear Diary,

Yes, it's me again, Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile.

I am officially a hot, hot pile! My internal temperature this morning was 145 degrees! Not only am I decomposing the greens and browns I was fed when I was made, but I am cooking any pathogens and weed seeds that are in my hot, steaming middle!

I could tell Eric just wanted to tear into me. He wants to know what is going on inside --- what makes me rot. But I gave him that steamy look that only a hot pile can give --- the one that says, “Look all you want, but I’m too hot for you!”

-- FR

Diary of a Compost Pile - April 14

2008-04-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

Today I'm featuring another diary entry by guest author Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile, the compost pile built during my Basic Compost Workshop. --- Eric

Dear Diary,

It's me, Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile.

Is it hot in here, or is it just me? My temperature this morning was about 130 degrees! About 5 degrees more and I will be hot enough to pasteurize pathogens and kill weed seeds!

Master Eric pretty much left me alone today --- just peeked at my thermometer and went about his business. I think this is a good sign. For now, I’d just like to be alone and build up my temperature.

-- FR

Diary of a Compost Pile - April 13

2008-04-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

Here is another diary entry by guest author Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile, the compost pile built during my Basic Compost Workshop. --- Eric

Dear Diary,

It's me, Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile.

The workshop participants left me in the care of Master Eric. Technically he is still a Master Composter in training, and that means he is still in his nerdy, enthusiastic stage --- I hope he doesn’t get to be too over-solicitous and fussy! I mean, compost happens, and I’m going to do all the work, so there is no need to keep fiddling with me. I suppose it’s nice to have a little attention now and then, but let’s not get obsessive.

For example, the first thing this morning, I saw Master Eric coming at me with a two-foot-long thermometer, and all I could think was, “That thing doesn’t look oral!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

Sure enough, no conversation, no kitchen scraps, no water, just BAM, and there I am with a huge thermometer sticking out of my heap.

A little abrupt, but the truth is that I am warming up to this guy. I was nearly 100 degrees after less than one day! I was actually almost exactly 98.6 degrees --- I felt almost human.

After checking my temperature, Master Eric began fussing around with me. He decided maybe I wasn’t quite as damp as a wrung-out sponge, so he sprinkled some water on me. It’s common for new piles like me that have a lot of dry brown material not to absorb the water sprayed on us when we are first built, especially if we are built in a hurry. We absorb it better after we have sat for awhile.

He also decided to add in the other 15 gallons of medium-sized, unfinished compost material he had sifted out of my predecessor pile, and cap me off with some more leaves he raked up around the garden. That is all brown material, so to balance me out he added a good amount of bagged chicken manure that he had got from the store a while back. Man, I hope I don’t start to stink! I already had a load of Roscoe droppings, and now all this chicken poop too? I don’t know how much more of this shit I can take.

Frankly, with all the disturbance, I sort of lost my decomposure. The whole experience left me a bit cold --- my temperature dropped back to about 80 degrees.

-- FR

Diary of a Compost Pile - April 12

2008-04-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

Today I am welcoming a guest author to the blog. I am posting diary entries written by the compost pile built by the participants in my Basic Compost Workshop. Some of these are a few days late, but we'll soon catch up to "real time." It's all yours pile! --- Eric

Dear Diary,

My name is Fertilemyrtle Rottenpile. I am a compost pile, and this is my story…

I was created today by a group of Basic Compost Workshop participants under the instruction of Master Composter Eric Renger.

They built me using the hot-pile or “batch” method, assembling me all at once of alternating layers of browns, water, greens, and air. I feel nicely balanced --- about equal parts greens and browns, damp as a wrung-out sponge.

I contain all kinds of interesting ingredients. My browns are mostly leaves and chipped woody prunings from around the yard and about 15 gallons of large, unfinished compost material sifted out of my predecessor pile, but I also have a little bit of straw, some cardboard, some newspaper, and a few paper napkins. My greens are mostly shredded leafy material from around the yard, but I also have a generous load of vegetable trimmings, about 10 pounds of Starbucks coffee grounds, and a pile of poop from Roscoe the rabbit. I am a very diverse pile!

It’s great to be here, and I hope to get rot down to business. I feel I am going to be a very hot pile! I am very grateful to the workshop participants for building me so nicely, and I’m sure I will be a pile that they can be proud of --- nicely decomposed, and not a bit smelly.

-- FR

Basic Compost Workshop

2008-04-14T18:05:00.001-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything in such a long time, but I have been very busy preparing the house and garden for the upcoming Bay-Friendly Garden Tour and for my Basic Compost Workshop that I conducted at the house on Saturday, April 12th.

All Master Composters are required to do some kind of outreach project to teach at least 10 people how to compost. I decided to do a workshop on Basic Composting (as opposed to Worm Composting), and I invited friends and family.

I present the workshop. (If you look closely, you can see that my eyes are closed. I was like that the whole way through.)

It was s lot more work getting this workshop ready than I would have expected. I wanted to do a hands-on workshop in which we actually build a pile, so I needed to empty my own full-to-the-top compost bin. In preparation, I sifted the whole cubic yard of compost twice, so that I could show the participants finished compost (material that passes through the 1/4-inch screen), unfinished compost that could be used for mulch (material that passes through the 1/2-inch screen but gets caught in the 1/4-inch screen), and bulky unfinished compost that needs to go back into the pile (material that gets caught in the 1/2-inch screen). That's a lot of sifting.

I point out some of the sifted material.

I also wanted to have enough ingredients ready so that the participants could build a whole cubic yard pile. So, for "browns," I gathered about 20 gallons of leaves and dry brown material from around the yard. And for "greens," I ran about another 20 gallons of moist green material from the yard through my shredder. I already had the 15 gallons of bulky unfinished compost I had sifted out that needed to go back into the new pile, and about 15 gallons of the finer mulch-like material that I could put back in. I also wanted some more exotic materials to show, so I gathered some straw from a feed store, got about 10 pounds of Starbucks coffee grounds, arranged for a gallon of rabbit poop, bought a bag of chicken poop, and saved up about 2-3 gallons of kitchen vegetable scraps. That's a lot of materials.

I prepared samples of amended and unamended soil from the yard, samples of compost from my system and from different commercial sources, and samples of my own mulch and commercial mulch. That's a lot of samples.

Some of us smell the various soil samples while family members appear to mock us for sticking our noses in the compost. It actually smells really good!

The presentation itself took a long time to prepare. I think I actually covered a lot more than what is required for the Master Composter outreach project, but I've seen a few of the really good workshops that the paid employees of the Stopwaste.org organization present to the public, and I wanted to do one that was at least as thorough as those are. I adapted one of their outlines, and I made my own visual aids. It took a few days to put the whole talk together and it runs about 2 hours long. That's a lot of talking.

I think it worked out pretty well. With questions and delays, the presentation went a bit longer than I expected, but people seemed to enjoy most of it, especially the hands-on parts. They all asked a lot of good questions, and I think they all learned something. I had a lot of fun with it. Because it was all friends and family, and we were having it here at the house, we had a barbeque afterwards, which is always a good time.

I demostrate construction of the Biostack composter.

One of the participants adds material to the pile while I appear to kick him in the behind.

One of the participants adds water to the pile.

I add a load of rabbit poop to the pile.

The compost pile we built is doing well. It has heated up nicely and is really starting to cook. I'm sending out e-mail notices to the participants so they can see how their excellent pile is doing. And I will now be welcoming a guest author to this blog --- the pile will be posting periodic diary entries.

Mulch

2008-03-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

I ordered 2 cubic yards of black mini-mulch delivered to my driveway from a building supply place. They told me it would come between 9am and 11am. The guy was ringing my doorbell before 8am. I told him it was mulch too early.

I spent the whole day spreading mulch of it around my yard, but there is still so mulch piled in front of my house --- I think I ordered too mulch. Next time I'll know how mulch to buy, and I won't get so mulch.

One good way to figure out how mulch to get is to measure the length and the width of the yard and then decide how deep you want it to be. Then use your mulchification tables.

Man Gets Shot to Avoid Work

2008-03-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

Apparently this guy got his frined to shoot him so he didn't have to go in to work.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080301/D8V4D90O0.html

Police: Man Gets Shot to Avoid Work
Feb 29, 10:56 PM (ET)

PASCO, Wash. (AP) -
What happened to faking a cough? Sheriff's detectives in Franklin County said a man had his friend shoot him in the shoulder so he wouldn't have to go to work.

When he first spoke with deputies, Daniel Kuch, of Pasco, told them he'd been the victim of a drive-by shooting while he was out jogging Thursday. But detectives told KONA radio that Kuch later acknowledged that he asked his friend to shoot him so he could get some time off work and avoid an upcoming drug test.

The friend, Kurtis Johnson, of Burbank, has been arrested for investigation of reckless endangerment. Kuch was booked into the county jail and is expected to be charged with false reporting.

Detectives declined to say where Kuch works, or whether he still has a job. It wasn't known if he had obtained a lawyer.

This dumbass has to be disappointed that he didn't get a Darwin Award out of this. With better aim, his "friend" could have killed him outright or at least shot his balls off so we could keep the gene pool clear of his stupidity mutation.

Honestly though, your job has to be pretty crappy if you'd rather be shot than go in to work. And if it is that crappy, who cares if you lose your job over a drug test? I guess I'm just going to make myself crazy if I keep trying to find any logic in this.

Kinds of Worms

2008-03-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

Apparently there are millions of kinds of worms. Of those millions of species, about 7000 species are earthworms. And of those, only a few species of earthworms are composting worms that are good for vermicompost. Here’s some info about the various kinds of worms.

Eisenia fetida

These are the best worms for vermicompost. They are often referred to as red wigglers, redworms, brandling worms, or tiger worms. They don’t actually live in soil the way most other earthworms do. They live on the surface of the soil under layers of decaying organic matter. They can consume huge amounts of organic matter, they do not require soil, and they can tolerate some disturbance, which is what makes them ideal for composting. These kinds of worms that live on the surface of the soil are called epigeic.

Aporrectodea caliginosa

These are common earthworms. They live in shallow lateral burrows in the soil that run parallel to the surface. They are not suitable for composting because they must live in the soil and must eat mineral soil, but they are good for gardens because they help aerate the soil and bring organic nutrients into the soil. These kinds of worms that live in shallow lateral burrows in the soil are called endogeic.

Lumbricus terrestris

These are the amazing Nightcrawlers. They live in deep burrows in the soil. They come up to the surface at night to drag decaying organic matter down into their burrows. They are not suitable for composting because they must live in deep soil, and they dislike disturbance, but they are good for gardens because they bring organic matter deep into the soil and provide aeration and drainage. These kinds of worms that live in deep burrows in the soil are called anecic.

Space Slug

These worms live on asteroids in a galaxy far, far away. They eat mostly spaceships. The photo shows the Millennium Falcon spaceship barely escaping a space slug. They are not suitable for composting, except when the compostable material consists primarily of spaceships. These kinds of worms that live in asteroids are called fictional.

Sandworm

These worms are native to the planet Arrakis. They are about a mile long with a mouth 100 yards wide, and they favor dry, desert-like conditions. They are not suitable for composting because of their large size, and the fact that they do not survive on our planet, but they do make an excellent form of transportation. These kinds of worms that live on distant planets are called fantasy.

What do Worms Think About?

2008-03-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

In my Master Composter class, I've been learning about vermicomposting, which is the practice of using worms to compost kitchen scraps. Certain kinds of earthworms can live in a small bin and can eat half their weight in kitchen scraps a day. A pound of worms can eat up to a half pound of kitchen waste each day. They produce a very rich, nutrient-packed compost that is great for plants.

These are the kinds of worms that would ordinarily be found in nature living under piles of cow poop, or in deep layers of fallen leaves --- they need a very rich organic environment. They live for about one year in the wild, or maybe as many as four years in a bin. They have both male and female sex organs, so they can reproduce sexually or asexually. And according to one of my class instructors, they have a brain.

A brain! So what do worms think about? My guess is that that they are fairly introspective and spend a lot of time in self-examination --- worms are their own harshest critics.

"Man, I am pathetic! I'm nearly a year old, and I'm still living in the same bin where I hatched! I'm going nowhere! I've got to get out of this place. Just look at me. I eat nothing but garbage and spend most of my time reproducing asexually. There's got to be more to life than this!"

I feel like reassuring him, "Awwwwww, little worm! You do very important work! You process half your own weight in kitchen waste each day, keeping it out of the landfill and turning something worthless into valuable fertilizer for plants! You help to save our natural resources. And you should be happy with your bin! If you were in the wild, you would probably be living in a cow pie, eating crap for lunch instead of nice delicious banana peals and gourmet coffee grounds. And don't be in such a rush, worm! They say the early bird gets the worm, so what's the point in being the early worm? And, yeah, you do spend a lot of time reproducing asexually, but you've got both sets of sexual organs, so why the hell not? You're being too hard on yourself, worm!"

I hope he feels better about himself.

What Separates Us from the Animals

2008-03-03T09:21:00.000-08:00

Some say that what separates us from the animals is our huge noggins stuffed full of brains.

Others say it is our opposable thumbs, which allow us to text message on cell phones, that sets us apart.

And there are those who say the difference is that we walk upright, which makes our opposable-thumb-equipped front paws available to hold those cell phones up to our big, fat, brainy heads while we tap dance down the street.

I say the difference mostly comes down to slurping versus lapping. Put a saucer of water in front of any beast, and it will lap it up with its tongue. Lap, lap, lap, lap. But put the same saucer in front of a human being, and (if you don't allow the use of opposable thumbs to just pick it up and drink it) the human will pucker its lips together and slurp. Sluuuuuuurp. Have you ever seen a cat or dog slurp?

Master Composter

2008-03-01T13:32:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a class to become a "Master Composter."

I quit my job some time ago and have been out of work for a while, so now when people ask me what I am doing, I say, "I'm working on my Master's."

"What? Are you getting an MBA or something?"

"No, I'm getting an MC --- Master Composter!"

Some people find this amusing and interesting, while others think I should apply myself more diligently to finding a job, but those people do not understand the importance of what I am doing.

A Master Composter not only becomes an expert in making compost, but also masters the art of teaching others how to compost. A Master Composter is something like the Yoda of compost. He is a powerful Jedi of compost, but he also teaches his apprentice to compost as well.

"Master, how shall I turn this pile of compost?"

"The fork must you use."

Pictures of the Moon I took through My Telescope

2008-03-01T00:26:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of the moon I took through my telescope using my digital camera.

The telescope uses different interchangeable eyepieces that give different magnifications. I bought an adapter that allowed me to attach my digital camera (just a regular Nikon Coolpix) onto an eyepiece. With something like the moon, you can use the camera's zoom to get the image framed the way you want, and then get things focused as well as you can with the telescope's focuser, and then the camera's auto-focus will automatically do the last bit of focusing.

There are a lot of different ways to take pictures through a telescope. Some of them use very specialized equipment. Some people use the digital camera method like I did. And then there are some systems that are based on web cams, and you use a laptop to capture and process the images.

The moon is a very easy thing to image, because it is very bright, so it does not take a long exposure. And it is big and has easily visible features, so it gives your camera something to auto-focus on. Star clusters and distant deep-sky objects are harder because they take very long exposures, and you have to have a system for tracking them very precisely as they move across the sky. For planets, people get good results with web cams and using a process called "stacking" that uses software to "stack" a lot of short exposure images into one single image to build up the details.

McDonough, GA Restaurant Gets Surprise Marijuana Delivery

2008-02-29T22:11:00.000-08:00

Did you see this crazy story about the restaurant that was shipped 250 pounds of weed in a dozen big buckets by mistake?

Here's the link to the original article: http://media.myfoxdc.com/myvoice/gamj.html

Here's what it says:

MCDONOUGH, Ga. (FOX 5) – Buckets and buckets of marijuana were sent to an unsuspecting woman. About 250 pounds of pot were sent from Phoenix via FedEx to the woman's family-owned restaurant in McDonough.

A dozen five gallon buckets of marijuana were recovered by authorities when the drugs were shipped via Fed Ex to the D and N Seafood and Wings restaurant in McDonough Tuesday afternoon.

"I looked down in it I thought it was like a plant because it was very green," said restaurant owner Nicole Williams.

Williams and her husband called police. Authorities said the pot was meant for the previous business at the location.

Agent Chad Rosborough with the Flint Circuit Task Force, a collection of local police working drug cases, said several suspects were already identified in this case.

Investigators said within the last three months, about 100 of the boxes filled with marijuana have been shipped to the McDonough area, and all of them have been shipped from Phoenix.

Police said some of the marijuana was sent to another private shipping business and a home.

"High end, it could be upwards to a million dollars of marijuana," said Rosborough.

Williams said the day the pot was delivered, two men in a white Suburban SUV with Arizona license plates stopped in trying to sell them cleaning supplies.

"The tags said Arizona. I wish I had gotten a tag number but unfortunately I didn't," said Derrick Williams.

A Fed Ex spokesperson in Nashville wouldn't discuss the specifics of the case. The spokesperson said Fed Ex was working with local and federal agents to find and arrest the people involved in Phoenix and the McDonough area.

I'm wondering if maybe someone had been sampling something out of one of those buckets before filling out the FedEx shipping label:

Flunky: Ok, I got this 250 pounds packaged up. Where do you want it to go?
Dealer: That one goes to 1515 North 5th street.
Flunky: Ok, five... one... five... one...
Dealer: No! It's one five one five!
Flunky: Oh, yeah! Right. One... five... uh... what?
Dealer: ONE FIVE!
Flunky: Yeah, I got that part already. One five what?

If you ever received something like this, you would definitely have to turn it in to the police, otherwise this guy might show up looking for it:

You wouldn't want to take chances, but I definitely would be tempted. Here's what I would probably do. I'd dump all the weed out of those buckets, pack it all into one-pound bags, pack the bags into cardboard boxes, tape up the boxes, and then label the boxes with FedEx labels like they came to me that way. Then I'd hide the buckets and call the cops. I'd tell them that FedEx delivered all these boxes of weed to me by mistake.

I've got no real practical use for 250 pounds of weed, but you can never have too many good buckets.

How to See the Space Station Pass Overhead

2008-02-29T15:30:00.000-08:00

Have you ever watched the International Space Station pass overhead? I've seen it several times.

It looks like a star moving across the sky. Often it is very bright, almost as bright as Venus. If you have ever seen a satellite, the ISS is generally much brighter than most other satellites you can see. Usually you have to get out of the city to see a regular satellite, but the ISS is often visible from the city on a clear night.

When the Space Shuttle is visiting the Space Station, it usually spends a day or two to catch up to the space station, and it is sort of amazing to see both of them passing overhead, one bright star following another.

This website tells you when and where to look to see the Space Station, and other big, bright satellites like the Hubble Space Telescope: http://www.heavens-above.com/

This might look like a long explanation but it is really very easy to do. You tell the site where you are --- it tells you where to look.

I usually use the site anonymously and select the Select your location from our huge database option.

On the Select Country screen, select the country where you will watch for the satellite.

On the Select Town screen, enter the city or town where you will watch for the satellite.

If more than one match comes up in the Town Search Results screen, select the right one from the list.

The Main Menu screen appears and shows you some summary info about the observing site you have selected and provides links to all the satellites you can get predictions for.
If you want predictions for the International Space Station, select ISS.
If the Space Shuttle is up and you want predictions for it, select STS-###. (That's Space Transportation System and the mission number)
If you want predictions for the Hubble Space Telescope, select HST.
There are several other satellites you can select as well.

The next screen shows the visible passes for the next ten days for the satellite you selected. I attached the screen I got when I selected the Space Station for my area.

Here's what the chart means:

I ran the predictions on the 8th, but you can see there are no visible passes until the 12th. Dang! This is because the angle of the orbit does not bring the station over my location at night at a time when it is still illuminated by the sun until then. It might still go directly overhead in the few days between the 8th and 12th, but it's either in the daytime, or late at night in the earth's shadow, when it cannot be seen.

The Mag column tells you how bright it is going to be. Small numbers are brighter. Negative numbers are brightest. The brightest pass on my chart is the Feb 16 pass with a magnitude of -2.2.

You have both the Start Time and End Times, so you can see how long the pass will last. Feb 16 is also a long pass, about 5 minutes.

You have both the Start Az and End Az. Az stands for azimuth, which is basically the direction, so you can see where it's going to start in the sky and where it is going to end. The Feb 16 pass, starts in the NW (North West) and ends in the SE (South East). Basically this pass starts at one side of the sky and ends at the opposite, so it goes almost directly overhead. That's why it is a long pass and why it is so bright.

The Max Altitude columns tell you how high in the sky it will get and when and where that will happen. Al stands for altitude and tells you the angle off the horizon --- 0 is on the horizon and 90 is straight overhead. The Feb 16 pass has a maximum altitude of 70 degrees, so it goes almost directly overhead.

So here's what I would do if I wanted to see the Feb 16 pass, which looks like a pretty good one for my location. (This is only for my location --- you need to run the chart for yourself to get accurate times an angles.)

I'd make sure it was a clear night. Any haze will ruin it. It's possible to see it from my backyard, but if I had the opportunity I'd go to a dark location with a broad view of the sky. And even better I'd bring a friend along. I might bring my binoculars too just to make it that much brighter. Looking at the sky through good binoculars is great, but it's not really necessary because the Space Station is so bright.

The pass is starting at 18:39 (6:39 pm), so I'd want to be there early. There may still be twilight then, but if it was dark, it would be good to let the eyes adjust to the darkness.

A few minutes before 6:39, I'd say, "Hey, have you ever seen the Space Station?"

The Friend would say, "What the hell are you talking about?"

I'd say, "The Space Station is coming up right over there at 6:39."

They'd say, "You're so full of crap!"

I'd start to look toward the north west scanning above the horizon for a moving "star." When it popped up, I'd say, "Wooooo-hoooo! There goes the freakin' Space Station!"

It's a fun trick. Seeing that little light moving across the sky and knowing people are living and working there right now is kind of a blast. Try it a few times before you decide to blow someone's mind just to be sure you know how it works. And make sure your watch is set for the exact time.

Here a few more tips about viewing the station:

Occasionally they change the orbit of the station in order to avoid space junk or to re-boost the orbit back to it's specified altitude. So if you get a 10-day prediction and plan on watching a pass a few days away, it's a good idea to get the another prediction as near as possible to the day you plan to watch, because the orbit may have been altered in the meantime. Be sure to do this especially if the Space Shuttle is at the station. They often use the shuttle engines to boost the station, so the predictions may need to be updated frequently during the time the shuttle is there.

Also, the example I gave earlier was for what would be a great pass directly overhead, lasting about 5 minutes, and very bright. Often they will just pass over one side of the sky and not get as high as you would want, so be sure to use your local chart to determine how high, how long, and how bright it is going to be.

Have fun watching the International Space Station, and be sure to wave as it goes by!

Never too Old to be a Dork

2008-02-29T14:43:00.000-08:00

I guess that in my day-to-day life I often do things that make me sort of a dork.

I was shopping at Target the other day, and Target has the best shopping carts for riding. You can stand on the back axle, and they are nice and stable, not like the ones that want to flip up in the front when your weight is on the back and dump you on your butt. Or the kind that don't even have a bar to stand on --- what's up with that?

So, I was heading back to my car with 24 rolls of toilet paper, a bottle of Draino and some Mr Clean Magic Erasers. I put one foot on the axle, gave a couple of good pushes with the other foot, then put it on the axle too. The parking lot has a gentle downward slope, and the car was at least 50 yards down the row, so I had a long straight run and picked up some really good speed! I noticed other shoppers watching me and realized what they were seeing: a man in his forties, grinning like a fool, hurtling through the Target parking lot, clinging to the back of a shopping cart. A dork.

Do you do anything dorky, or is it just me?

Review of "Hot Drinks" Cookbook

2008-02-29T13:09:00.000-08:00

My local newspaper has a feature every Wednesday in which they have a reader write a review of a cookbook. Here is a review I wrote and had published last fall.

(Note: the paper writes the headlines --- what a bunch of dorks!)

AAAAAaaaaaarrgh! Grab a glogg with gusto
By Eric Renger

The following review is by a reader who was given a cookbook from the Times. The included recipes were selected and prepared by the reader.

When I first saw the "Hot Drinks" title, I thought maybe this was a book of drinks that are "hot," as in "fashionable" or "currently popular." Picture an airhead holding a martini glass, saying "Ooooh! That is so hot!" But Paris Hilton had nothing to do with this book -- "hot" in this title refers to high temperature.

I was drawn to the book because I do enjoy a delicious toasty beverage during the chillier months, and I have a number of warm "medicinal" beverages that I take when I get a cough. I also often drink these medicinal beverages as a sort of inoculation or vaccine to prevent a cough from developing. You can't have too many medicinal beverages. I also spotted a recipe for Swedish Glogg, which I wanted to compare to my own recipe.

"Hot Drinks" is an attractive book, and it is filled with enticing photos that make you want to try everything right away. It has about 10 recipes each in five categories: chocolates and coffees; teas and tisanes; cocktails; punches; and dessertlike drinks. I wanted a diverse group of people to sample recipes from several of the different categories, so I glommed onto a dinner party hosted by my in-laws and prepared Rosy Cheeks, Swedish Glogg (both the recipe in the book and my own for a blind taste test), and Mayan Hot Chocolate with Chile and Orange.

I chose Rosy Cheeks because I wanted something from the teas and tisanes section, something without alcohol or caffeine, but when I really got into the recipes in that section, nothing grabbed me. So Rosy Cheeks was sort of a last resort. It is a combination of Ruby Red grapefruit juice, cranberry juice cocktail, guava juice and lime juice, served hot.

Rosy Cheeks is the sort of drink that makes your wife's face scrunch up into a grimace like she just bit into a lemon, makes her head wag back and forth, and makes her say, "Ugh! Tart!"

Just to be sure that it wasn't a false first impression, and also because it was sort of amusing the first time, I asked her to try another sip, and because she is such a good sport, she did. And even though the element of surprise had been lost, she still shuddered like she had swallowed an especially sour bug.

My own reaction was not quite as violent, so Kathy held out her glass to me and said, "Here. You can have the rest of mine," which I did accept, albeit not gratefully.

Everyone at the party who tried Rosy Cheeks agreed it is too tart and a bit bitter. Some suggested that it would be better if it were served on ice with a generous shot of vodka in it, which is a great idea, but directly contrary to the concept of a hot tisane. Others suggested that it needs to be sweeter if it is to be served warm. I tried slightly different proportions of the ingredients, adding a bit more cranberry cocktail to sweeten it up a bit, and the drink was improved slightly, but not enough to be worthwhile.

I also found the color of the drink to be less appetizing than the photo in the book. The book says, "The pink color virtually blushes with a rosy glow, hence the name." But when I made Rosy Cheeks, it seemed a bit murky and unappealing. If my cheeks were that color, I would see a doctor immediately. I suppose it would not be a very alluring name for a recipe, but it would have been more accurate to call this drink Grayish-Purple Pucker Face.

Next we performed the Glogg Challenge taste test of the two glogg recipes. Glogg is a potently fortified, sweetened, spiced and heated wine beverage of Scandinavia. There are millions of recipes for glogg, and everyone thinks their own is the one and only way to make it. This may be due to the dual nature of the Scandinavian culture itself. A thousand years ago, Viking barbarians swept out of the north to terrorize all of Europe. Now Scandinavians are mostly known for ultra-safe automobiles and stylish-yet-affordable furniture. Glogg recipes occupy the entire spectrum from Erik the Red to Ikea. My style of glogg is not the kind for sipping in the inglenook with your pinkie finger extended. It's the kind for guzzling out of tankards on a rocky shore after rowing the longboat from Iceland -- a fortifying drink before storming a hapless village. AAAAAaaaaaarrgh! Gloooooooooggg!

The Swedish Glogg recipe in "Hot Drinks" calls for Aquavit, also called Akvavit, a clear distilled spirit that has a hint of caraway seed. Now I'm no mechanic, but I'm pretty sure Volvos can be tuned to run on Aquavit. The recipe also calls for Ceylon cinnamon sticks, which the book notes is the true cinnamon, not the cassia bark that is usually passed off as hard cinnamon sticks. Honestly, would a Viking care? The glogg in "Hot Drinks" uses candied orange peel instead of the fresh peel that I am used to, and it omits cloves, which I think are essential, and it uses less sugar, and it doesn't simmer as long -- the differences go on and on.

The results of the blind taste test were no surprise to me. Without knowing which recipe was which, everyone who sampled them felt that the "Hot Drinks" recipe was not adequately spiced, was a bit too dry, and was not complex enough. The lack of complexity is disappointing, considering the more exotic (and more expensive) ingredients called for in the "Hot Drinks" recipe. Many of the recipes in this book use unusual ingredients available only in specialty stores, which is fine when the added effort and expense adds something special to the recipe, but very irritating when it doesn't pay off.

Again, without knowing which recipe was which, everyone felt that the recipe I use was more complex and better balanced with respect to sweetness. I would attribute the better complexity in the recipe I use to the cloves, the fresh orange peel, and a caramelization process performed on the sugar that involves brandy, a fire extinguisher, and a 2-foot-tall blue flame.

I personally did not like the caraway flavor of the Aquavit, and I also felt that the "Hot Drinks" recipe resulted in a beverage with more of an alcoholic burn than the recipe I use, even though the two have about the same alcohol content. Even a Viking does not want to be burned by his glogg if he can help it.

As I mentioned before, glogg recipes vary widely. They often borrow from each other and are adapted according to taste. This recipe is not one I am going to try again or attempt to adapt. The recipe I use is one I developed based on a recipe I found on the Internet. If you enter the words "hero" and "glogg" into your search engine and poke around a bit, you will find the recipe I use as my jumping-off point. And any search for "glogg" will find plenty of other good recipes.

Next we tried the Mayan Hot Chocolate with Chile and Orange, which received mixed reviews. Almost everyone liked the complex bittersweet flavor. It was somewhat reminiscent of Mexican mole sauce, but with more of an emphasis on bittersweet chocolate. The chile flavor did not really pop out, but it did add to the richness of the overall flavor, and it added some heat. Not everyone liked the heat, and not everyone liked the bitterness, which is to be expected --- not everyone tolerates those flavors well, and it is really just a matter of taste.

One unanimous criticism of the Mayan Hot Chocolate was that the drink was not as creamy as you would expect. It looked nice and frothy, but the consistency was a bit thin, and the flavor was not as richly concentrated as you might want.

During the preparation, all the dry ingredients are mixed together, and then heavy cream is added to make a paste. The recipe does not call for it, but I added a lick-the-bowl step. That stuff was delicious! We knew the basic flavor was great, so a few days later, Kathy and I rescued this recipe by making the wonderful paste and just blending that with the liquid to taste. We also used milk as the liquid instead of water. That was the best hot chocolate we had ever had in our lives! If you make this recipe, I recommend using a little more cream to make the paste, and using 1 cup of milk instead of 1 1/2 cups of water.

After the party, I felt like the book had not delivered very well. We had two outright failures and one fixer-upper. But Kathy and I both felt we had to give it another chance. This book is like a rotten kitten that continuously shreds the upholstery, but he's so darn cute, you keep cutting him slack.

Kathy decided she wanted to try Paris After Dark, a coffee drink that would also make use of some of the leftover fancy-pants Dutch process cocoa powder I had purchased for the Mayan Hot Chocolate. We both liked Paris After Dark. It seemed a bit more sophisticated in flavor than some of the coffee and chocolate drinks you get at the chain espresso shops --- not overly sweet or rich. You could have this after dinner without feeling like you were going to make yourself feel overfull, as can happen with a richer mocha. It was very nice, and easy to make.

We also tried Spicy Mulled Cider. We often serve spiced cider at Thanksgiving and other cool-weather holiday parties, so we thought this recipe would be worth a try. I’ve never added star anise pods or slices of orange and lemon to my spiced cider before, so it was an interesting change. I think the lemon made it a bit tart for my taste, but it had a nice flavor overall. If you are going to make this recipe, be very sure to enunciate properly when you tell your spouse what you are making. I told Kathy, “I’m making a spiced spider.” She looked in the saucepan and saw the eight-legged star anis pods bubbling away and nearly jumped out of her skin.

All in all, I would not recommend the book. The gorgeous photography and tempting descriptions suck you in, but the recipes mostly do not deliver.

Want to be a critic? We'll give you a new cookbook to review. Contact nboer@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Paris After Dark

Serves 2

4 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons Dutch process cocoa powder
4 teaspoons heavy cream
1 1/2 cups strong, freshly brewed coffee
1/4 cup heavy cream, firmly whipped with 1 teaspoon sugar, for garnish
Pinch of fleur de sel (French sea salt) for garnish

In each of two mugs, mix 2 teaspoons of the sugar and 2 teaspoons of the cocoa until well-blended and lump-free. Add 2 teaspoons of the cream to each and stir until thoroughly combined into a light paste. Add 3/4 cup of the coffee to each and stir again until thoroughly mixed. Top each with a dollop of whipped cream. Roll the dollop over to stain it with the coffee, then sprinkle a few grains of fleur de sel atop the whipped cream.

-- Staff analysis

Per serving: 180 calories, 2 g protein, 11 g carbohydrates, 15 g total fat, 9 g saturated fat, 55 mg cholesterol, 90 mg sodium, 1 g fiber. Calories from fat: 78 percent.

Mayan Hot Chocolate with Chile and Orange

Serves 2

Eric Renger recommends using a little more cream to make the paste and using 1 cup of milk instead of 1 1/2 cups of water.

1 ounce bittersweet chocolate (72 percent cacao), coarsely chopped
4 teaspoons Dutch process cocoa powder
4 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ancho or Chimayo chiles
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons heavy cream
1 1/2 cups water
4 orange wedges
2 Ceylon cinnamon sticks for garnish

1. Melt the chocolate in a 4-cup glass measuring cup in a microwave for 90 seconds at 70 percent power.

2. Combine the cocoa powder, sugar, chiles and cinnamon in a small bowl. Blend together until thoroughly combined and lump-free. Add the cream and stir well to make a thick paste.

3. Add the paste to the melted chocolate, mix well, then add the water and stir until thoroughly combined. Heat in the microwave for 90 seconds at 70 percent power, stirring once after 45 seconds. Serve in 2 Mexican pottery mugs. Squeeze 1 orange wedge into each, divide the hot chocolate evenly between the mugs, and stir well. Garnish with the remaining orange wedges and the cinnamon sticks.

-- Staff analysis

Per serving: 140 calories, 2 g protein, 20 g carbohydrates, 8 g total fat, 4.5 g saturated fat, 15 mg cholesterol, 10 mg sodium, 1 g fiber. Calories from fat: 50 percent.

Spicy Mulled Cider

Serves 4

3 cups sweet apple cider
4 whole star anise pods
1/2 teaspoon whole allspice berries
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 5-inch Ceylon cinnamon stick
4 white cardamom pods, cracked
2 slices of orange, quartered
2 slices of lemon, quartered

Combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a low simmer. Lower the heat and continue to simmer gently for 30 minutes. Ladle into four mugs and serve steaming hot.

-- Staff analysis

Per serving: 90 calories, 0 protein, 23 g carbohydrates, 0 total fat, 0 saturated fat, 0 cholesterol, 20 mg sodium, 0 fiber. Calories from fat: 0 percent.

BOOK: "Hot Drinks: Cider, Coffee, Hot Chocolate, Spiced Punch, Spirits" (Ten Speed Press, $16.95, 96 pages), 50 recipes

AUTHORS: Mary Lou Heiss is the author of "Green Tea," and Robert J. Heiss is the host of a weekly radio show about food. They operate a specialty food store and co-wrote "The Story of Tea."

REVIEWER: Eric Renger is a thirsty barbarian of the north.

Misadventures with Skyrockets

2008-02-28T23:39:00.000-08:00

This is my first post on my new blog. Just to see if this crazy thing really works, I've decided to paste in some ramblings about my various misadventures with skyrockets. My misadventures with skyrockets began at a very early age and have continued through most of my life. Here are some of the highlights:

Early Experiments

When I was about 10 years old, I made a small rocket by painstakingly cutting the small disks of gunpowder from about a hundred toy cap-gun caps and stuffing them into a segment of tube from a "monkey-tail" plant. I lit the little rocket with a magnifying glass. It shot straight up my sleeve and exploded in my armpit. That hurt a bit.

Mexican Garage Fireworks

When I was in college I went to Mexico with some friends. We bought a big bundle of large exploding rockets that were obviously made in someone's garage. Due to a little problem with a very fast-burning fuse, the rocket ended up ricocheting around inside a confined balcony space while a friend and I jumped and dodged to get out of its way. It eventually impacted my hip and exploded, leaving a small crater in my thigh. That also hurt a bit.

Flare Gun

Another time in college, some friends launched a rocket from an eighth-story dorm room across the quad into the common room of another dorm where it exploded, panicking the students studying there. The next day, housing authorities circulated a flyer soliciting any information regarding suspects who fired a “flare gun” through the dorm window.

A Brush with Fame

And on yet another night in college, my roommate attempted to launch two rockets simultaneously out of our dorm window with a homemade bazooka. One went out the window, but the other shot around the confined room and exploded, setting off the fire alarm. We went into a panic trying to air the room out before the whole building alarm went off. Olympic swimmer Matt Biondi lived one floor below. Suddenly he burst through our door, sucked in a huge Olympic-sized breath, and blew on the fire alarm until it shut off! Then he turned to us and told us to, “Quit fucking around!” He seemed to sort of resent the disturbance. That was my brush with flame…uh, I mean fame.

Another Confined Space

On my last night in the dorms, my friends and I were drinking tequila and firing rockets out the window, while some lunatic on the balcony next to us yelled, “Thunder! Lightning! Feel my power!” Apparently he thought he was causing the lights in the sky. My friend’s skyrocket technique was to stand well back from the window, light the fuse, wait for the rocket to start to flare, then throw it out the window. Eventually he missed the window, and I was able to re-experience the by-now-familiar thrill of dodging a rocket in a confined space as it shot around my dorm room and exploded. Another friend of mine, who stands about six foot four was able to prevent the fire alarm from sounding by holding a pillow over it while we aired the smoke out of the place. It’s good to have friends in high places.

Hechen Bala!

A few years later in San Felipe, some friends and I were launching rockets from the beach out into the ocean, when some locals in a house above us on a cliff sent a few jumping jack fireworks in our general direction. For some reason we took it personally and decided to launch our very last rocket back at them. You could not have asked for a better shot. The rocket soared up to the top of the cliff, barely cleared the wall around the yard, and exploded about ten feet off the ground, directly over their heads. Of course they returned fire, and because we were out of ammo, we spent the next fifteen minutes dodging rockets on the beach. When you visit another country, it’s important to remember that you represent all Americans.