Wholemeal Crank

Try, try, again.... 1 gram of the sencha fuka-midori in the 100mL gaiwan, with 160 degree water for 30 seconds, was much better. Still, more astringency/bitterness than in the bagged tea. Will be very curious to see whether this is the same mix of tea as in the bagged version or not--have sent an e-mail to inquire.

A little later, brewing some loose-leaf sencha fuka-midori, 2 grams in a 100mL gaiwan for 1 minute, it looked like dragonwell and brewed like it too--nutty, astringent, bitter, little of the sweetness that was so overwhelming from the teabag version. A second cup brewed for 30 seconds and diluted to about 5 ounces with water of the same temperature was much better, but now I get how tricky this is to do just right. Not sure if the first bagged sencha was a different tea, or just beginner's luck. Plus the bag packaging doesn't list the grams of tea, and it's broken up, so different infusion performance shouldn't be surprising.

After a particularly pleasing few cups to start the day, I am going to have to add some japanese green teas to my regular tea rotations. The roasted Bancha houjicha was not nearly as interesting as the sencha teabag in my sampler from denstea.com. I detected almost no bitterness, lots of sweet, and the liquor had a wonderful body. From what I'd been reading, I was expecting something more like a dragonwell, but this was much more to my taste, with hardly any bitterness.

After the cup of sencha, more from the sampler: sencha teabag from denstea.com, one teabag to about 5 oz of 160 degree water, for 60 seconds. Light yellow green liquor, delicately vegetal, sweet, nice!

Starting today with the Houjicha Gold Bancha from Denstea.com, brewed 2 grams in about 5 oz water just off the boil for 30 seconds. Toasty, quite nice that way, but a bit one-note on the toastiness.

Hm....I think I have done that at least once, but fortunately it was via a thrift shop so not a big outlay. I've also bought a cookbook for the 2nd time deliberately, when I got rid of one a bit too hastily, and had second thoughts. There is one I've been thinking about recently that I might just try to find used online again....

I more often drink tea by itself, or make it according to what tea I'm interested in drinking at the time. I've never deliberately paired it with food. If what I'm eating doesn't pair well with the tea I have ready, I drink water until the food is gone, then resume with the tea. I have noticed, no surprise, that almost any tea goes well with bland buttery cookies, but not all teas stand up well to strongly spiced curries. That's about as far as I've gotten.

Interesting description, but no idea what the tea is. Yesterday i finally got to the bottom of the fabulous 2007 sheng white bud pu-erh from norbutea.com. About 2 grams of tea brewed up to one quart with about six serial infusions for one quart of lovely tea, but a pint brewed later from the same leaves was starting to get a little thin. It goes so far, though, that I have only just finished my first sample and this was the first time I broke into my beeng (if that's the right term for this disk).

I am not surprised at my percentages--I know my collection has grown faster than I could make use of it in recent years because I'm cooking less often, but also working too much, and right now, it's easier for me to buy a new cookbook that I want to try rather than to get it from the library. I count those books as 'using for two or more recipes' if I used recipes from it twice or more; and liked those well enough to keep it. I have certainly gotten rid of books that I used twice or more but didn't enjoy (e.g., Lord Krishna's Cuisine); used twice or more but then I found another book in a similar area that I liked better--was more comprehensive, or more to my current tastes (e.g., Classic Italian Cooking); or that I took a key technique from that I now apply to recipes from other books (Best Bread Ever). Others are kept for recipes that I know so well that I rarely go back to the primary volume, but still, if I got one or more recipes out of it with such value, it's worth keeping in hopes there will be more I like as much (More than Minestrone). I also consider a book a success and worth keeping even if I virtually never follow a recipe precisely, but do open it, read it, and get inspired to make a variation on that. I'm defining 'following a recipe' here as needing to review the ingredient list or order of steps in preparation, but even with baking, I almost never follow the recipes precisely as written. I do have a grain mill to mill my own whole wheat flour, and I do not have any cookbook written as 'start with 300 grams of hard white wheat berries and 150 grams of soft white wheat berries and 6 long peppercorns, coarsely crushed'--save the recipes I write down myself in my own book or post to my web site. If that was for a recipe that called for 3 cups of all purpose flour for a loaf of bread, I'd consider that following the recipe and give the cookbook credit. I always refer back to Flatbreads and Flavors for my favorite Chickpea and Onion Stew, but usually play with the vegetable component by what's in season, and double the spices, but still would have trouble getting it right without having the written recipe in front of me. That's using the book too. I also give credit to those sources of the recipes that I have memorized and follow more or less precisely but never have to open the book anymore. I do live now in a house with capacious cabinets, but even when in small apartments I put up bookcases as pantries to keep a good stock of grains, beans, seeds, spices, dried fruits, home canned stocks, and abundant cooking equipment on hand.

Home again and looking at the actual cookbooks on the shelf: 53 books used for at least two different recipes 44 books used one recipe or haven't yet used (on probation) 4 books used for just one recipe but many times for that one recipe (I would consider these to have earned a permanent spot on the shelf) 19 books purchased primarily for reference/background; some have recipes but that's not why I bought them and 3 books of my own recipe clippings and handwritten recipes, each used many, many times, for a total of 123. So 1/3 of the books on the shelves, but almost half of the 'recipe books' haven't yet been really used; of those, I'd bet at least half make it for the long term, but others will be dumped when I need the space and finally admit that I just don't like the stuff in them, and others will stay until bumped off by something else covering the same ground but that I like better.

Green jasmine tea from Peets, and even with taking the tea bags and hot water separate to better control the brewing I still overdid it and it is unpleasantly bitter, sigh. Tea on the road is so often frustrating.

Big red robe wuyi oolong. Enjoying the shift between the three teas I picked for this trip better than the every day same I did last time. Roasted oolong to floral oolong to smoky puerh. And will return tomorrow all ready for some green tea adventures with the novice sampler of Japanese teas I got from dens tea.

can't understand how you do this: I'd either have a chronically burnt tongue from drinking before the tea cools, or be drinking bitter, oversteeped tea. Cor am I missing something?

Bakewise was a disappointment for me because it seemed to emphasize texture over flavor, exemplarized by one recipe that combined butter, shortening, and oil, purporting to thus gain the benefits of each inthe final result, without any recognition of how 'diluting' the butter this way compromises flavor. If I want a Twinkie, I'll buy a Twinkie; when baking myself, I want better than storebought, not a reproduction of the blandest grocery-store-bakery junk. Another major disappointment was Lord Krishna's Cuisine by Yamuna Devi. It won the IACP award and was gigantic and so expensive--the most expensive I had ever bought. It just had to be good, because it was a collection of vegetarian recipes from a culture with a very strong tradition of vegetarianism, so I anticipated time-tested recipes that would not simply be adaptations of meat-based recipes with substitutions for the meat. But after trying four or five recipes, from different chapters, all of which just seemed off--dry, flat, just not satisfying--I looked at the introduction for the first time, in which she noted that garlic and onions were considered unhealthful in the tradition from which she drew the recipes. D'Oh! I had to acknowledge that it was not the book for me, and gave it away to my father with a warning about this peculiarity. He enjoyed reading it, but I don't think he ever made many recipes from it either.

$100? EEEK! Are most cookbooks in Australia quite expensive? That's more than the price of all but the super fanciest coffee-table picture books with recipes here in the US....

I have not tried anything labelled 'green oolong' from Ten Ren, but have adored their Pouchong, which is a very light, floral, hay-like oolong, but though the liquor color is a green-tinted gold, the tea has little other resemblance to a straight green tea. I've enjoyed their less expensive third grade quite a bit. And I suspect your tannin is my astringent, although it might also be my bitterness. I like a little astringency from time to time but not bitterness.

Decant from the gaiwan. You tilt the lid just a little bit to allow the tea to be poured off quickly--how much depends on the size of the tea leaves that you want to be retained in the gaiway--then pick it up and drain into another cup, holding the gaiwan with fingers over the lid and the base in one hand. I was thoroughly unimpressed by a restaurant that served us tea as loose leaves plus hot water in gaiwan-shaped cups with no lids and nothing to decant it into--oversteeping, burnt tongues, and eating tea leaves are all definitely no fun!

Had some barely green tea at a Chinese restaurant last night. It was surprising to see a teapot with teabags with some bright green tea in them being used to pour my refill. Mist have been too dilute to get bitter. Big red robe oolong today.

Yes. It was so good that I ordered a lot of it. I've for several months left at present rates of consumption, depending o m how much I can bear to part with as holiday gifts...

Starting the day with more diamond tie Guan yon from norbutea. So nice to wake up to this one.

2007 White bud sheng puerh from norbutea.com. I drink this tea only perhaps once a week, and every time I fall in love with it again-- sweet, smoky, fruity, exceptional.

I'm not going to be near my cookbook shelf agAin for about a week, so this is an estimate..... I have culled my books regularly, so of those I've had more than about 5 years, the two or more recipes should be about 90% of the cookbooks. Of those I've had less than 5 years, it drops to probably 20 or 30%, because I tend to cook less from recipes these days, and cook less often overall; and I still count a book a succrss if opening it reliably leads to something yummy being made, even if it's because I have invented something inspired by a recipe or discussion in that book. Since I've slowed the get-cook-cull cycle a lot, then, I'm probably down to 50 or 60 percent of those on the shelves now. But will verify when I get home.

Yes, especially with tomatoes, lemon, and garlic, served over quinoa.

Today, for the first time in a month or so, a mix of rishi 'snow bud' with 'peach blossom' white teas. The plain 'snow bud' cuts the too-strongly-floral peach blossom beautifully. After so much aromatic and floral new style oolongs and pouchong, it was a nice change of pace.

Cookbooks that lead to happy cooking experiences--whether directly from their recipes, or consistently lead me to riffs that are productive--get to stay on my permanent shelf for browsing and use. I get to know and trust the authors. I use the library to 'test drive' books, check out used book stores, and lately just buy some based on reviews by people I trust. I don't expect all of them to be permanent acquisitions. Those that don't get opened often enough, or lead to interesting ideas, get recycled to the library donation bins or used bookstores for trade. I grew up with someone who reads and collects cookbooks, and I saw the gradual encroachment of hundreds, now thousands, of books on tables, floors, and hallways. I vowed that my cookbook collection would have to earn its keep. I would get rid of books that weren't being used regularly, that might be full of nice recipes but just not quite what I prefer to make, and I would not feel guilty about getting rid of them. My current collection has expanded a bit of late to three shelves at 48 inches plus another foot encroaching on a 4th shelf, in part because I have been buying more than cooking lately, and not culling as often as I should. Still, over the years, I have traded in at least as many as I have kept, and some good ones have gone back, because they're just not the right fit for me. The internet is a good starting point for recipe ideas, but the signal to noise ratio is very very low for the kind of cooking I like to do.