Tiny birds and big changes

Aaaaand where do I start?

Just gonna rattle it off I guess.

But first let's travel back in time for a second... To February 2009 when we first encountered Big Pink.

Yup. That's who we fell in love with... By the time we moved in we had the front porch of course and this week little sis over by the pastry shop finally got new gams. I know she's been waiting for this day.

James spent the week in Clintondale (lucky dawg) prepping the trim to be painted. He's getting help from Billy and between the 2 of them we are soon gonna have a dark green house. James busied himself with the bay window and got much done!

She's about ready for a paint job!

The J's also worked to finish Tom's side, our south gable.

There was a window where the white patch of shingles is and the trim around the door is also done. Still left to do: The two small windows up top will be moved to around the corner (pastry shop and bathroom) and we have ordered 2 taller ones to replace them. 

When there was a drop ceiling in the green room it didn't seem weird that the top of the windows reached about James' adams apple, but now that we have nothing but space - they look a little dwarfish. And lastly - the little rounded attic vent will finally become a real window

The boys built the frame where the bathtub is going to go.

This is the closed up window from the inside. Our plumber Scott has already started laying pipe. (Are there a lot of innuendos in this post or is it just me?)

Phew - I think that is it for work around the house. To be continued this week...

We had ourselves a 3 day 4th of July weekend and we got a lot done around the house but there was also some NIIIIIIICE relaxing and humming bird spotting... That's right. They apparently LOVELOVELOVE our trumpet vine and oweeeeeegot lots of it. Of course after the first sighting the city folk (us) got in Suzy Q (the new car) and headed straight to Lowe's (the building supply place up the road that feels like my 2nd home sometimes) and bought feeders and nectars! If they had had humming bird costumes that James and I could have dressed up in to attract them I think we would have bought one each and some extras for visiting friends. Very cute little buggers and something new to look out for.

Speaking of cute little buggers...

We had only one guest for the holiday but my was it a distinguished one.

Weasley, of Little Dog Orchard fame. An absolute pleasure to have around and there is really only one downside - the realization that 19 Maple Ave needs something furry. (See! Is that dirty - I don't even know anymore?

This fantastic muppet like creature is a little closer at hand, living in the cottage and all, so we often partake in his amazing fits and starts. The other day he got a hose bath and we couldn't figure out if he was playing again or if he really just thought it SUCKED.

I have a few stories to tell about UNWANTED furries around the property but I'll save that for another post. 

So who knows if I'm just getting up there or if the country has turned me into a semi hermit but crowds - meeeeeeeehhhh - don't really dig'em, so staying around the house on the 4th with a man and a borrowed dog was all I needed. I made pork loin and we watched fireworks by the mountain house. And we brewed. It's been a while so it was new and exciting again. The funnest part was doing it outside (we like to do it outside) on the burner kind Dirk has lent us. 

Our neighbors across the street, Suzanne and Butch, had a fantastic garage sale Memorial Day weekend and we picked up a lot of good stuff. One thing being this terra cotta cooking pot. So for the 4th we DIDN'T BBQ, but instead I made something highly reminiscent of my Scanditrash roots - pork and taters with a lotta salt and pepper. 

I made a rub with crushed garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. I precooked the potatoes a little and then put them in the pot with some cut up onions, along with the seasoned pork loin. Some fresh rosemary twigs on top and SKJUTS - in the oven! 400 degrees, about 25 minutes on each side. So juicy - so delicious - so easy.

We also took a small drive for ice cream to Tantillos farm. Softserve with homegrown peaches and raspberries.

Meeeeeeeh... I thought it was awright....

To round out a perfect (although STIFLING) summer weekend in the country, we stopped and picked some road side Blackeyed Susans and brought home. I'm Swedish and I take Allemansrätten with me wherever I go. (All mans right - to pick berries and flowers and mushrooms in the woods where one finds them)

We are back in the city for a week of work. Always with this work stuff getting in the way of fun. But soon it'll be weekend again and we'll be going home to the country.

Backyard beauties

We know that when you open a business it's all about location location location. We took over the very successful bird feeder franchise in front of the dining room window from the precious owner. We really had no idea what a gold mine we were sitting on. The clientele is very versatile and loyal and comes from all over. We easily go through a feeder a week. We thought we would capitalize on the success and branch out to a lesser known area, over by the kitchen window. If you want to make it in this business you gotta have cojones, right. So we bought a new feeder, filled her up and waited. Not a bird in sight. But I know that the most gentrified areas of Brooklyn were once industrial wastelands and they will come. Sooner or later, they will come. It starts with the starving artists and the hipsters follow. As a marketing ploy I spread some seed on the ground. And check it out:

When we showed up on saturday morning the new feeder was empty. I wonder what the first bird who discovered it thought. Probably the same thing I thought when I first moved to the Williamsburg area in the mid 90's - OMG how do I keep this secret to myself. 

A lot happened in the yard while we were away this week. (Lots happened in the city too -  it was doc week for Linda. I worked on a documentary about FDR right across the river at his home on tuesday and wed-thurs was a documentary about Fran Lebowits directed by Martin Scorsese. He hung out with us on a balcony for an hour or so while shooting Fran peeking her head out at 6 o'clock on the Grand Central Station clock.

Marty was very dapper and jovial but there's unfortunately no real story here. My story of the day was when Lisa the DP and I were in the back of Fran's old checker cab with a camera driving through Times Square at night. She is an old school driver alright and was laying on the horn cursing everyone else on the road. It was a little scary but mostly just hilarious.

So back to what happened on Maple Ave...

This is the flower bed outside the dining room that we uncovered a week ago. Just in time!

This is the kitty cat bud tree in full bloom. Aaaahhhhhh.... 

It smells amazing! I would love some ID help with it!

This is the next tree to go.

And the chestnut.

This tree has unfortunately split down the middle, probably happened in the big storm, and most of the buds have died, but I'm following this one closely. If we can at least get one flower.

We needed to try our home brew to make sure we are on the right track. It should still age for another 2 weeks but we wanted a sneak peak.

The author enjoys a 2 week old Fat Robin Pilsner.

And you know what - we got beer. It's already pretty tasty. 

Today was yard work and fish tacos. I totally cheated and used fish stick for filling, just fried them up in a lot of oil in the pan. We love fish sticks over here so that was hardly a negative. For fixins I marinated cabbage in vinegar and lime juice and some salt and pepper. And cut up some tomatoes and red onion. And then this sauce:

1/2 cup plain non fat yougurt

1/2 cup mayo

juice from 1 lime

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp  ground coriander

1/2 tsp dill weed

1/2 tsp oregano

1 tsp chipotle chili powder

1/2 tsp minced capers (kapris)

1 tbs chopped fresh cilantro

Mix it all together and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours. Darn good. We sat outside on the patio and drank Micheladas with the meal. !Muy Bueno¡

Adios!

short but sweet weekend

Lazy saturday. Got up to the house around 4 am and woke up 10.30. Tried to start the day off right with mexican eggs. Which is really just scrambled eggs with cheese, red pepper and onion and a dash of chipotle powder. Then we soak a lot of tortilla chips in there before we fry it up. A little fresh cilantro and we got Huevos Mexicanos. I dabbled a little chipotle salsa on top but it really didn't need it.

We spent the rest of saturday in the yard. This patch outside the dining room is unfortunately infested with knot weed as well. We raked out all the leaves so we could see where the baby aliens were.

We also freed up plenty of spring flowers.

We decided to name the 1st batch from the Blue Jay Brewery "Fat Robin Pilsner" in honor of this guy. He just looks like he knows his beer. 

Batch #2 is up and running/fermenting. Drunken Grackle Pils perhaps?

And this is the handsomest man in the world raking.

And that was our weekend. How was yours?

Got beer?

AREPA! As fun to say as it is to eat. I was inspired to do Mexican weekend for 2 reasons. There was a lot of cilantro in my window sill boxes and as we were getting ready to bottle our brew we needed to empty some more Tecate bottles. 

Arepas are South American corn meal pancakes and you use pre cooked corn meal, masa harina to make them.

2 cups of masa harina

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups of boiling water

Mix the corn meal and salt and add the boiling water. Mix it all together and make a dough, then let it sit for 10-15 minutes.

Make patties and fry both sides in oil until they get a crispy surface. Lay the patties on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

We topped them off with cheese and broiled for a few minutes. Then served with refried beans and cheese and salsa fresca. 

In my salsa fresca I put a crap load of vine ripened tomatoes, a crap load is about 10. Half went through the blender and half I chopped by hand. There's cilantro in there, both store bought and home grown. Sweet spanish onion. One jalapeño. Salt. I let it sit for a few hours and that's it. 

We had left overs this morning and I poached some eggs and we had arepa bennies. Good one E!


Our Blue Jay Brew has been fermenting for a week and today it was time to bottle it. James was a good boy and emptied most of these. I helped a tiny bit. 








Tasty. 





We started by siphoning the fermented brew into the bottling bucket. There's a lot of yuck at the bottom of the fermenting bucket that you don't want in the bottles so we siphoned off the top. While it goes into the bottling bucket we also added the priming sugar that will build the bubbles.


We also took a little taste and you know what? We got beer.

From that bucket we siphoned into bottles.

Then you cap the bottle. With an insane smile on your face apparently.

And that, dear readers, is a bottle of Blue Jay Brew: batch #1. 

So relax alright, have a homebrew.

We are going to crack one in 2 weeks to see how the process is going, but the bulk of it - 16 bottles - will wait for 4 weeks. 

Bubbles in the airlock and a valance in the window

One means cutie-tootie and one means there's beer brewing in the basement.

So if any of James' grip friends read this blog - he was in no way involved in the hanging of this beauteus yellow and white striped valance. He tried to stop me but I maced him and hung it by myself. There is electric current running through it so if he touches it he'll go down. We still have to paint the other window and then I will hang the second one.

Rosemary designed them and sowed them. We bought 1/4" x 1 1/2" boards that you stick in a pocket sowed at the top. Tack with finishing nails and fold it over. Then bang the nails in to the wall and it's cuteness complete. I think it sort of justifies the yellow counters and back splashes which I can kind of live with now. Very content. We may have nixed the blue even.

And NO - it's not a country kitchen. It's Chez Linda or The Blue Jay Café. 

Started the home brew last night. I'm mostly writing it down so that we can remember for next time. So many crazy steps. We made it easy for ourselves and bought the kit to make a pilsner, we'll start to supplement with other stuff in bulk as soon as we know what we are doing. 

So again, these are just the steps we went through and I know there are some seriously accomplished home brewers who may read this and we are so so so open to tips and suggestions! 

Sanitation 

Everything gets scrubbed and good riddance to all contaminents.  The big 20 quart (5 gallons, 19 liter) pot, the fermentation bucket and all the little gadgets and tools that will be used in the process.

Making the wort

We will end up with a total of 5 gallons of liquid, so to start pour 3 gallons in to the cleaned fermentation bucket. We boiled it first just cause I read that somewhere, the cleaner and more sterilized it is the better. After that boil 2 more gallons in the big pot. At the same time heat some water to loosen up the malt syrup in. Our number 1 ingredient. Exciting.

When the water boils take the pot off the heat and pour in the malt syrup. It is supposed to foam up like crazy but we had only minimal foaming. OMG have we failed already!? But what are you gonna do, Dirk's encouraging words ringing in our ears. You are gonna get beer. Like it's really hard to FK this up.

Next the hop pellets go in. And now it's starting to smell like  a brew. Boil for about 1/2 hour and then add the hop leaves. We now have wort, the soup that will become the beer.

All this talk about cleanliness and sanitation and you want us to dunk a dirty gym sock in the soup. OK. You guys make the rules. So - put the hop leaves in the hops bag and put it in the wort. The gym sock only stays in for 1 minute and then it's time to transfer the wort from the pot to the fermentation bucket. It mixes with the 3 gallons of cold water and will hopefully be around 90˚, yeast pitching temp.

We activated the yeast in a container on the side 15 minutes before the wort was done.

The yeast goes in the bucket, we left it alone for 10 minutes and then stirred just a little bit. Lid goes on tight and the airlock goes in the hole of the lid. Fill up the airlock halfway and put the lid on that.

Fermentation

We stuck the bucket in the basement cause a pilsner needs a cooler temp to ferment, around 50˚. We woke up this morning and I ran right down to see if we had bubbles.

We had em! Bubbbbbblesss!!! Which means the yeast is doing its job and the fermentation is a go. 

The bucket will hang out in the basement for the week and we should be ready to bottle by next weekend.

And more importantly, we should be able to crack the first bottle when my parents arrive April 16th.