Pinquitos with lamb

I started out making bbq pinquitos* beans, but along the way I got diverted. I added a leftover lamb bone and pan juices from a leg I roasted a while back, crushed tomatoes, thyme, chopped onion and mushrooms sauteed in bacon grease, bay and rosemary from the back yard, garlic, salt and pepper, plus water and wine. Poured hot over frozen peas it all reached the perfect temperature, flavor and texture combination for a rainy Monday evening. There's a great lamb essence in the broth, the barely cooked peas burst with fresh sweetness when you bite them, and the beans have a firm texture and mellow taste that rounds it all out.

Perhaps I'm practicing for this summer when I hope that I'll be pulling in great harvests of beans from my garden.




Next up: Christmas lima beans (no really, they are variegated red and white like Christmas wrapping paper).



*What are pinquitos?

I'm buying the occasional bag of dried beans these days from a guy at the farmer's market who drives them down along with fabulous artichokes from Lompoc. I generally don't buy the artichokes these days because they seem so expensive and I have three plants of my own on the way, but I do buy the beans! Pinquitos are most similar to pinto beans, but they are smaller with a slightly more mellow flavor. They are the hallmark bean in the bbq beans that are traditionally served with Santa Maria style bbq (a roast of tri-tip). You used to be able to buy a can from S&W in the supermarket, but I haven't seen those in years.

1.52" of rain

Rainfall started last night about 10 PM and fell through at least half the day today. We ended up with 1.52" of rain from this storm, bringing the seasonal total to ~3.23".

1.52" over the course of ~12 hours is a nice rainfall for us in southern California. More is falling as I write. Hurray for rain!

edit: the "More is falling comment" was a short lived observation. The storm only brought us a little more. It was hard to measure, so I've adjusted the above rainfall figures up 0.01", the lower limit of my measuring ability.

Lebkuchen or honey cake

Lebkuchen* is a German honey cake which I make as part of a family Christmas tradition.

Normally, I'll make some right after Thanksgiving and let it sit in a closed tin while the flavors meld. In my opinion, lebkuchen usually tastes best after Christmas which suggests that I could start even earlier.

The recipes that I use have candied fruit in them, the same as in the infamous fruitcake that is passed from one family to the next each year but never eaten. So, to the uninitiated it starts with a strike against it. Three actually, if you count the name and the fact that there's no chocolate in it. For those reasons it seems to be an acquired taste. Fortunately I have acquired the taste for it, or at least the tradition of it. At its best, lebkuchen is soft, chewy, fragrant, and sweet, with a little citrus bite that is a nice counterpoint to the sweet.

When I was little I enjoyed lebkuchen cookies at Christmas time that were made by Grandma (Oma). Family lore has it that Opa made her try many recipes before he found a recipe that reminded him of the cookies he'd had a child in Germany. The recipe that they settled on is from The Jewish Cookbook (it's actual name, so I am told).

I remember that many years I picked little bits of eggshell from the cookies. When I asked Oma about it, she told me that the recipe was difficult. I had visions of exotic yolk separation techniques or maybe even something wilder, but it turns out that the recipe is actually quite simple. It's just that Oma’s dedication and love exceeded her skill sometimes.

Lebkuchen from The Jewish Cookbook

Beat 4 eggs until light, add 2 cups brown sugar and beat well. Sift together 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon of baking powder with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Add 2 oz of finely cut citron, and 1/4 pound of chopped walnuts to the flour. Stir into the egg mixture, and blend well. Spread the dough 1 and 1/2 inches thick in greased pans. Bake in a moderate oven, 350 F, for about 30 minutes, or until done. Cool, spread with White Icing, and cut into bars. Lebkuchen and Honey Cakes should be stored a week before using.

I always use a lemon glaze (lemon juice with powdered sugar) in place of the white icing recommended above.

This recipe is a bit too subtle in flavor for my tastes, though according to Opa it was "just right". My notes from an earlier year say that when I adhered strictly to the recipe I found that I would have preferred a bit more spice flavor. That part about "until done" is a bit amusing too. It's often difficult to tell without close inspection whether lebkuchen is overcooked or not.

Because there's virtually no fat in the recipe, my normal calibration for doneness that is trained on cakes is not reliable for lebkuchen, as I've found to my chagrin in 2 out of 3 recent years. To me, lebkuchen appears slightly under done when it is actually ready to be removed from the oven. This year I overcooked it slightly (even though I was close to the suggested 30 minutes time in oven) and that contributed a poorer rendition of this recipe than I had anticipated. I would suggest 25 minutes in the oven at most. I've yet to try fixing an over cooked lebkuchen with a little kirshwasser, rose water, or other liquid.

A recipe more to my taste comes from the LA Times, who some years ago had a feature article on Lebkuchen in their food section.

Raisin Lebkuchen from the LA Times

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 cup honey
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup blanched silvered almonds, toasted
1/2 cup chopped candied fruit peel
1/2 cup chopped citron
Lemon Glaze

Beat egg and sugar together until smooth and fluffy in large bowl. Add honey, lemon peel and juice. Beat well.
Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. Gradually add to egg-sugar mixture on low speed of electric mixer.
Stir in raisins, almonds, candied peel and citron. Spread batter in greased 15x10-inch baking pan.
Bake at 375F for 18 to 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool slightly, then brush with lemon glaze and cut into pieces.
Remove pieces when cool and store in sealed container for at least a week.


The LA Times recipe is very flexible and forgiving. I've used it with regular raisins and currants substituted for the golden raisins. I've eliminated the candied fruit peel, and I've used walnuts instead of almonds and both the recipes work well. The only crucial part of both recipes is not to overcook the lebkuchen. This point can't be emphasized enough - don't overcook the lebkuchen!

You'll be storing the cut pieces of lebkuchen in a sealed container for at least a week, preferably two or more, before the flavors start to meld, and it picks up a softer texture. In order make the pieces look best, you should apply the lemon glaze and then slice the pieces while the glaze is still liquid. Leave the glaze to solidify and then slice again along the same cuts and remove the pieces from the pan. Cutting the lebkuchen like this prevents big chunks of the white frosting from being pulled out by the knife.

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Origin of the name

Lebkuchen has at least two interpretations of its name. In modern German it is literally "liver cake", perhaps a reference to its color (gray to brown from the honey or brown sugar which is perhaps reminiscent of cooked liver). But a historical perspective suggests that it really means “heart cake”. This quote, in Old High German, which I found on the web some time ago suggests that while today "leber" means liver, that "leb" once upon a time meant heart, perhaps a reference to the sustaining powers of the dish.

Interessant ist, wenn man die Parallele zum "Leb"kuchen zieht. "Leb" heißt "Herz". Der Lebkuchen ist also ein Kuchen in Herzform. Somit ist das "Lebkuchenherz" eigentlich eine Tautologie.

We're from the government and we're here to...

...help you garden.

Turns out there's official guv'ment gardening recommendations for LA County. Hosted at UC Davis, of course.

Bamboo trellis

I cut some bamboo from my parent's house in order to make trellises for sugar snap peas (now) and maybe pole beans (later).

I wasn't sure how to trellis the sweet peas but a little Googling assured me that almost anything would do.

Custom concrete pavers III

Maybe you're wondering how the concrete pavers that I wrote about earlier turned out. Here's what the bottom (now the top) looks like.



I didn't wait long enough for the caulking to dry and consequently it stuck at the edges of the leaves. Experience has shown that it's not too hard to remove.

I think I'll add some red to the color mix.

Gophers love Lavatera assurgentiflora

I planted three Lavatera assurgentiflora (Tree Mallow) on my parent's hillside earlier this year. This was a real plant trial. They were planted with a fairly wide separation: one ended up in the midst of freshly dug gopher hole tailings (hey, the soil is nice and loose), one ended up near some other native plants, and one ended up between two black acacia trees in a spot that's a bit too shady for it.

The gophers thought that I had just given them a tasty treat. The Lavatera near their holes and near the native plants were chomped: to certain death in one case and to nearly certain death in the other. The gophers even stood on hind legs to nibble the above-ground branch ends and to girdle the bark above ground. I've never seen that sort of feasting before.

The Lavatera come from one of the channel islands from seed gathered years ago.

Here's a picture of the first to go. It didn't get very large - that's about a 1.5" to 2" trunk at its maximum. The dirty part is all that is left of the roots - as you can see they have all been nibbled back and the trunk is deeply knawed. Even the lowest branch at the right has been nibbled on top.

The second Lavatera to go lasted long enough to produce some immature seed but it is completely girdled, so I don't think it will survive. I don't know if it will self-sow or not.

Thanksgiving dinner

Thanksgiving dinner in Santa Barbara was fantastic:

Clockwise from 6:00. Two types of cranberries, sweet potato mousseline, mashed potatoes and gravy, creamed spinach, two types of stuffing, wilted greens salad with pan roasted crabapple. Turkey and roasted Cipollini onion at center.

Later we went to see the tall ship Nina, a faithful recreation of Columbus' caravel of the same name made with hand tools and traditional boat building techniques. Columbus sailed with about 30 men aboard - all but the captain and one other slept and lived on deck which was often awash with water. The modern version doesn't have to carry cargo below decks, so that area is fitted with more modern conveniences and living quarters.


Life on board the Niña in 1492 was not for the light hearted. When the Niña left on any of her three voyages to the New World, her cargo hold was full of provisions, water, armaments. There were live animals ranging from horses, cows, pigs, and chickens. The four-legged animals were suspended in slings as the rolling motion of the vessel would have easily broken their legs.

Needless to say, there was little room below decks for the 27 or so crew to sleep or cook. Cooking was done in a fire box located on decks in the bow of the ship. Sleeping was on the deck and was always uncomfortable as the ship was so loaded with cargo, her decks were always awash. A lucky few could sleep on the poop deck or find a coil of rope to sleep on to keep them off the deck a foot or so.

Braised red cabbage

I had been thinking of making braised red cabbage the way I'd tasted it in Thuringia, but I got side tracked by a recipe over on the Thinking Stomach and ended up making a variant of that recipe instead.

I served a leg of lamb roast, roasted potatoes, and braised chard along with it. The cabbage didn't really fit - it deserved a braised roast of venison or pork roast, but all the parts were good individually.

Thanksgiving rainfall 0.93"

Before I left town on Wednesday the 26th, we'd had 0.85" of rain in my back yard. Upon my return, I measured 0.08" more. Ignoring evaporation, that makes 0.93" from the last storm.

We're running at the high end of the third quartile for rainfall in November which makes up for no significant rainfall in September. This puts the seasonal total to date, ~1.72 inches, above the median rainfall of 1.03" for this time of year.

Custom concrete pavers II

Here's something I did back on the 23rd.

In Forms for custom concrete pavers I showed how I make the forms for the pavers that I use in my yard. Here's a bit more detail on the moments before a pour.

I assembled the paver form the night before, and it took about 16 H for the silicone caulking to dry to a state where I thought it was OK to pour. I wasn't 100% right on that - it could have gone longer. I used white, because that's what I had on hand, but my preference is for black since it's easier to see against the white of the form. My goal was to make a water tight tub for the concrete to set up in and then add a few artistic touches that make this a truly custom job.

I've added plenty of leaves before, mostly from the Magnolia in my back yard. Normally I'll press a leaf down into carpenter's wood glue with a board and a brick. This time I used Western Redbud leaves which are more flexible than the Magnolia and also, because it's a native tree, more meaningful to me. I set them in a bed of the same silicone adhesive that I used on all corners, but didn't press them down other than with my fingers to bed them in. I don't know if this feature will turn out. We'll see.

I also added a hole in the paver to let me grow a small plant or maybe just to break it up visually. I could always just put polished rocks in it. The form for the hole was cut down from a large PVC coupling using a hacksaw, then slit up the side. The side slit is intended to let it compress and come out easily, but I filled the slit with caulking because I was out of packing tape. What I really needed was a wider side slit with tape over it. I anchored it into the pouring table with a piece of wood and two screws and gave it the same waterproofing treatment that the rest of the from received.

Here's the completed form with some tools of the trade. On the right side of the form, I've aligned the edge with the edge of the fluorescent light cover which will give me the surface texture. At left, the little triangular braces hang out over it a bit. The braces are Maple, a hardwood.

The Christmas box in the picture holds my drill bits. The bottom of the mold is fragile - I suggest drilling first before trying to insert screws.

The top of the form edges received a layer of clear packing tape, until I ran out. This prevents water intrusion which can really degrade the form. Cheng seems a bit anal about this, but that's why he makes beautiful pieces. My previous experience says that it's not critical, particularly for garden pavers. Still, the form will keep its life a bit longer if I use it.

I level out the form in both axes using some left over shims and spacers placed under the table.

I add color (this time I was a bit bolder than previous attempts and added about half of the colorant). I also add about a fist full of polypropylene fibers (at left below) to strengthen the concrete.


Below, the concrete, mixed and ready to shovel into the form. Those Atlas gloves are invaluable. I also use a NEMA-approved dust mask when pouring the concrete out of the sacks - the dust is mighty fine and quite alkaline. I use a special hoe with some holes in it made for mixing concrete, but I'm sure a plain old hoe would be fine.

The volume of concrete shown comes from two 60 pound sacks of Quickcrete 5000 and it fills the form nearly to the top. If I were pouring a countertop I might be a bit more anal about getting right up to the top of the form.

I have always found that the concrete takes nearly twice as much water as the bags say you need. I used about 1.8 gallons for this batch, and the bags say that 0.5 per bag is sufficient. They also say not to exceed twice the recommended amount, so I'm OK. Add some of that water to the empty mix container before you add the dry concrete so that the bottom gets wet. Mixing ~130 pounds of concrete with that hoe is a work out!

Browse inside

I'm back from my blog vacation a day early.

Did you know you can read many Harper Collins books online? For example, here's Neal Stepehenson's book, The Big U. I'm currently reading his latest, Anathem, and it's good, but I think that I liked Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle better.

Anathem widget

Burn, baby, burn

Another violation of my self-imposed blog vacation to link to an LA Times article on chaparral. The story profiles Rick Halsey, a former high school science teacher, who is the founder of the California Chaparral Institute, a nonprofit environmental group. (What a nice switch of jobs. According to the article his wife makes the bulk of the money.)

The story frames a debate between Halsey and governmental forces about the merits of proscribed burns in the California back country. There's a lot of fear among San Diegans about fire, and one proposed solution is to burn the back country. Many people believe that fire is an essential renewing event in the California chaparral. This widespread opinion dates to a 1983 article in Science which is now believed not to be correct in some essential ways. Most importantly, the true role of fire is as a once per century event, rather than a once per 30 years event.

How often fire burned through Southern California before humans arrived is the subject of much scientific and public policy debate.

The only nonhuman source of fire is lightning.

But does lightning spark many brush fires in Malibu? And does lightning occur during blue-sky Santa Ana wind conditions?

The answers are no.

Fire prevention policy has centered on a much-disputed study published in 1983 in Science magazine, which suggested that modern fire suppression had caused too much fuel build-up. In the article, UC Riverside professor Richard Minnich concluded that, historically, fires were small and burned frequently -- leaving a patchwork mosaic of fuels of varying ages that prevented fires from scorching vast acreage. He believed chaparral less than 20 years old didn't have enough dead material to burn.

This encouraged land managers to conduct prescribed burns in the backcountry to get rid of the old, most volatile fuel.

But many scientists have since rejected the findings.

Hugh Safford, ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Southwest region, said wind-driven fires roar through young chaparral and old chaparral alike. While older vegetation has more dead wood to intensify the flames, it matters only when the vegetation is adjacent to homes.

"Under Santa Ana wind conditions, it doesn't matter how old it is," he said. "Re-burns in 3-year-old chaparral are common, and some of these fires even burned through 1-year-old chaparral."

Jon Keeley, a fire ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, suspects the pre-human wildfires were huge -- but happened only once a century in any given area. The likely mechanism: Lightning during a monsoonal August storm started a fire in the high mountains that smoldered for months; the Santa Anas picked it up in October or November and drove it all the way to the coast.

Because native Americans didn't arrive in California until about 10,000 years ago, and evolution takes much more time than 10 millenniums to do anything worthwhile, this model is what the plants adapted to.

Strangely, the Times didn't provide a link to the Chaparral Institute.

How near is the end?

The end of lawns as we know them.

I'm violating a self-imposed blog vacation to bring you a link from MSNBC about fake lawns sent to me by Margaret. They give lip service to native plant lawns, but it's mostly about astroturf (one woman spent $10k on hers! Amazing.) and clashes with city ordinances requiring green lawns.

Some cities are weighing whether to lift bans on artificial turf that date back to the days when phony grass looked like fluorescent plastic. A few communities are also encouraging the use of native plants once derided as shaggy weeds.

Advocates of natural alternatives are not sold on fake grass, saying it's a petroleum product that can heat up too much in the region's searing summer weather and can harbor germs.

"This is just like putting a carpet outside," said Betsey Landis with the California Native Plant Society in Los Angeles.

Some water districts are offering customers $1 rebates for each square foot of lawn they remove and 30 cents per square foot of fake grass they install.

I absolutely hate the idea of fake grass for home use. Keep it on the playing fields, I say.

It ends with the following paragraph:

How near is the end?

John Rossi, general manager at Western Municipal Water District, which services cities including Riverside, Corona and Temecula, agrees that the end is near for the traditional lawn.His district recently adopted the slogan "redefining green" — meaning planting water-efficient gardens, not necessarily green ones. Rossi said he tried to sell the concept of "brown is beautiful" with little success.When it comes to the disappearance of real lawns, Rossi said, "the only question is the time frame. When we talk about 8 million more people coming into California in the next 20 years and there's no new water supply, it's not a matter of if, but when."

One can only hope.