A sourdough variation

Rye flour and water starter, photo by Michael McKinney

 I have been following the Thom Leonard sourdough recipe from Artisan Baking Across America.  The recipe begins with a simple rye flour, mixed into a levain, and builds off of three or four subsequent mixtures of General Purpose flour and Bread Flour.  The recipe is notable in its lack of yeast, which I added, as well as raisins and walnuts.

Sourdough Levain, Photo by Michael McKinney

Risen Sourdough Raisin Walnut dough.  Photo by Michael McKinney

 

Finished bread.  Photo by Michael McKinney

Labor day 2013

Gateway Trail Construction, Photo by Michael McKinney

Stillwater Gazebo, Photo by Michael McKinney

Historic Stillwater Lift Bridge, Photo by Michael McKinney

Kaposia Park Sculpture, Photo by Michael McKinney

I had been thinking for awhile about a decent ride out through Stillwater and Afton via the Gateway and Military Road.  On Labor Day I took the day and set out in a clockwise fashion from Saint Paul, got past some construction on the Gateway Trail system and worked my way towards Pine Point - a north wind made the day a little more tolerable but also increased the resistance and wattage required for getting home.


Although I grew up in Stillwater, I no longer live there and do not get many opportunities for cordial visits with all of my old friends at the fantastic wine bars and social clubs Stillwater is so famous for.  The Dock Cafe, The Freight House, The Madcapper, The Oasis, Marx, Tin Bins, The Daily Grind, Smalleys Caribbean BBQ and a handful of other businesses in Stillwater are familiar to me as new and old establishments.


I wasn't planning on stopping for long, and my planned route deviated slightly when I carried my bike up the 162 Main Street stairs on the South end of Main Street.  Other options for ascending Stillwater's River Valley and proceeding in a Southern direction are Third Street, Second Street, Highway 95 and Myrtle Street to Sixth Street.  For many graduates of Stillwater Senior High School, especially track athletes, cross country runners and cross country skiers, the Main Street stairs are a familiar beast of burden.


After the Stair Climb I went through the town of Bayport, neatly divided from Stillwater by a half mile of barren moonscape, dirt and rock known as the St. Croix River Bridge Project, a public works fiasco in Stillwater since time immemorial.  Since the project has been commissioned, the tentative completion date is 2014, but if you asked Stillwater townsfolk in 1992 when the new bridge was going to be completed, they would have told you 1998, at the latest.  Even though pylons are in the river, I won't believe it until I see it.


The easiest part of the ride was traveling South to Afton with the wind at my back, followed quickly by the meat of the altitude, comprised of five or six large hills before County Road 20 and the descent back to Saint Paul on Military Road.  The day was a total of 70 miles, no mechanicals, a few pictures and a newfound appreciation Stillwater's evolving infrastructure.

A 1958 Plymouth Fury by any other name.

Christine by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Remove all evidence of mysteria, (yep, I just made that word up, it means 'mysterious hysteria'), from a typical Stephen King novel and you're left with simple avarice, greed, obsession and average citizens caught up in extemporaneous circumstances - more often than not by their own failings.  King's sense of humor comes through in his characters, but also a certain disregard for most people and their interests.
The mysteria in question, Christine's demonic possession, is caused by Ronald's murderous spirit, formed by his own dented and scarred childhood.  Unable to repair himself, his life as a mechanic revolved around an oily thumb and a gift for keeping old cars and trucks "motorvating".  Pretty standard fare for a King novel, and I saw a very concise review stating any King novel can be summed up as an inanimate object, (car, toy, hotel), a lingering evil possessing a morally susceptible person, (Jack Torrance, Arnie Cunningham) and then everything gets put through the meat tenderizer until one or two characters are left standing.
So, remove all of the mysteria, forget about the demons, the possession, the impossible and impractical, and the reader is left with a handful of murders, a drug dealer, Arnie somehow caught up in all of it and Dennis, wanting to save his childhood friend.  There is no mystery more significant than watching somebody you have known all of your life make wrong decision after wrong decision and gradually implode.  Stephen King would like to fantasize about it, as a lot of people with escapist fetishes would, but reality is more terrifying than this book.


View all my reviews

Thursday Westerly Ride

That's 48.48 miles for mankind, and two steps back for the Einstellung Effect.

Wait: The Art and Science of Delay by Frank Partnoy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I appreciated the wide set of examples used to construct a solid thesis.


View all my reviews

Nice Ride 170

Fort Snelling State Park.  7-28-2013.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

Nice Ride!  7-28-2013.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

Nice Ride 170 riders.  7-28-2013.  Photo by Michael McKinney

Nice Ride 170 riders.  7-28-2013.  Photo by Paul Jan.

Glenwood Avenue, MPLS.  7-28-2013.  Photo by Michael McKinney

So here's the thing - a Nice Ride bike is closer to eighty pounds than fifty.  It's a beast of efficiency and small wheels, with three gears and a basket and lights for safety.  If you need a bike to get somewhere, and you've got no access to one yourself, and yet crave the freedom of riding a bicycle, the Nice Ride will get you there.

There have been failed attempts at bike share programs, the only one I can recall off the top of my head is the Yellow Bicycle Coalition, started back in the 1980s I believe - St. Paul Minnesota had their own fleet of Yellow Bikes, stationed at what was the old Sibley Bike Depot in downtown.  That initiative failed, I was told, due to simple theft.

A Nice Ride bike is not something a typical person would enjoy stealing.  Though I wouldn't have expected Big Wheel racing to be a thing either, so it goes to show you never can tell.  Last year a mutual acquaintance invited myself and whomever felt brazen enough to ride with him on the Nice Ride 145, an excursion throughout St. Paul and Minneapolis, stopping at all 145 Nice Ride stations.
The heat was the biggest factor that day, with a couple of technical glitches, (professionally and quickly dealt with by the Nice Ride Technical support team), and a few riders dropped out due to the heat.

After receiving an invite and the smallest bit of encouragement, I joined in again this year and enjoyed the same mind numbing, back breaking, thigh crushing, eye opening zeitgeist that must be the threshold of the incredibly brave or the incredibly foolish.  Five participants completed the whole route, consisting of 100 miles, 170 Nice Ride kiosks, many bridges, many patient and courteous drivers, (though a couple of nasty ones were in there too) and a stop at Northbound Organics, (YUM) and Psycho Suzies, (BEER ME).

To my understanding the Nice Ride phenomenon is not slowing down, not giving in to the occasional technical difficulty or allowing the even more rare theft to prevent the idea of the Yellow Bike Coalition from being silenced.  The radical concept of saving the environment through conserving what fossil fuels remain may start with a simple demand for more efficient urban commuting - think global and act local.  Get out and (Nice) Ride.

Editor's Note - if not for the other riders and the sequential manifest, I would not have completed this by myself.  I would suggest connecting a few kiosks at a time, as a start.  8-24-2013

Goodreads review of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Terrible self deprecating humorist tries to find substance in vapidity, uses first pronoun judiciously while recounting shameless vapidity, slanders Alexander De Tocqueville, Freud and numerous critical thinkers in a desperate attempt to validate his lack of credibility, appeals to the reader's sentimentality with his father's imminence while maintaining, mandating, repeatedly glorifying the role of all women as an object...I could go on.  Just pure tripe.
A worthwhile memoir is one that doesn't need to rely on the concept of "I Me Me Mine".


View all my reviews

Rhubarb

I am not a huge fan of debate.  Discussions pertaining to issues that do not affect me, or have some far reaching epistemological, rhetorical, esoteric purpose behind them seems redundant.  Not having an interest in argument does not provide a warranty against disagreements, and I often find myself being drawn into a discussion on one side or another, which brings me back to debate.  When to debate, when not to debate, how to debate, how to speak clearly, how to support your stand...all things I do not understand well enough to not feel a difference of opinion is anything more than a personal accord on my person.

John Mcenroe has always been a standard bearer for my understanding of how adults resolve disagreements.  "You've got to be kidding me!" seems a fairly reliable way of informing another person that he or she is wrong.  Obviously pejorative terminology is peppered in depending on the importance of the objection.

To deal with this obviously far reaching and naive view of the world, I sometimes think about British Parliament, and have taken the advice of a friend who likened the murmuring of dissent behind every statement made by Tony Blair as "rhubarb...rhubarb...rhubarb..." more likely parliament is uttering "...rubbish, rubbish, rubbish..." but often times it can be helpful to at least paint the Greek Chorus a Lighter Shade of Pale.

Last week's Tri-Loppet went very well, I placed in the top twenty and had a good day.  I rented an Hourcar to transport a rental kayak from Midwest Mountaineering.  Both Hourcar and Midwest were faultless in their customer service - demonstrating capability and patience with my questions and concerns.  My first transition was pretty rough and I almost incurred a scene from the 3 Stooges by turning to look behind me while carrying a kayak and hitting at least one or two spectators with the bow...nevertheless, nowhere in the planning process or during the event was my thinking concerned with rhubarb, tennis or John Mcenroe.

I brought up rhubarb as a means to an end though, and while surely there is some greater purpose involved, as far as my agenda is concerned, rhubarb is in season and my last two batches of bread have incorporated walnuts, rhubarb and honey.

2nd leg of the 2013 Tri-Loppet, photo property of Skinnyski.com

Rhubarb walnut bread, photo by Michael McKinney

Wilderness Systems Eclipse, Hourcar.  Photo by Michael McKinney

2nd Transition area, Tri-Loppet.  Photo by Michael McKinney

Queueing for the start, 2013 Tri-Loppet.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

Rhubarb walnut bread.  Photo by Michael McKinney.