For the past several weeks, our weekly CSA share has included a quart of strawberries. We’ve found ways to eat them fresh, but this weeks share was nearly overripe and we couldn’t take any more strawberry pancakes or cereal with strawberries or yogurt parfaits… so I turned the whole quart into ice cream. Chomp!
Meanwhile, the strawberries needed to be whazzed up. Before whazzation:
Après la whaz:
Blend the strained custard into the strawberry puree:
Churn, baby, churn!
A few hours in the freezer after churning, and you got yourself a bowl of strawberry ice cream!
This recipe doesn’t make the creamiest ice cream in the world; it’s a little icy. That’s due entirely to the high level of water that comes from the fruit-to-cream ratio. More strawberries went into the recipe than did cream. It’s an acceptable trade-off for the fantastic flavor of the resultant product. Bye!
Jess brewed some beer this weekend! She whipped up a batch of Belgian Dubbel. You can read more about it over on the other site I recently launched – a place to talk about homebrewing and winemaking.
This picture was taken not long after the final sponging of the grout, so it appears a little darker than it will once dry. We’re happy with how it looks. Now we just need walls.
Yeah, usually there are walls before you start tiling, but I had a good reason for doing the tiles first. I just can’t remember what that reason is now. It won’t matter in the end; I left the proper gap for the drywall to fit in around the edge of the tile floor. Also, I haven’t grouted the tiles yet. I’ll probably do that this weekend.
So I had endoscopic sinus surgery yesterday. If you’re interesting in knowing why I had it or how it went (without any gory details), then keep on reading. If you don’t care, go ahead and skip this post.
I’ve been struggling with allergies and sinus issues for four or five years now. My nasal allergies were easily triggered by dust or mites or mold or even the plain old histamine that occurs in wine and beer. A slight allergic rection would cause my nose to close up and leave me with no sense of smell and with little ability to breathe. This blockage invariably led to sinus infections.
A few months ago I visited an ENT to start looking for a way to take care of the problems. The doctor looked in my nose and declared without hesitation that I have large nasal polyps. He decided the plan was to:
Take a tapered dose of oral prednisone to shrink the polyps. In some patients, this suffices.
Have a full allergy test performed and begin immunotherapy (allergy shots) to hopefully reduce my reaction to my known allergens in the long term.
If the predinisone didn’t keep the polyps away for any real length of time, then remove them surgically.
The first round of prednisone was great… while I was on it. Two weeks after that treatment ended, things were back to how they were before I started. That meant surgery would be required. Yesterday I had that surgery. It was an outpatient procedure performed under general anesthetic. It couldn’t have gone better.
My biggest concerns going into the operation were:
The recovery would be awful. I feared that I’d have black eyes, swollen cheeks, nose packed with gauze, tons of bleeding, and inability to sleep. Apparently, this is how it was in the past, say 10 or 15 years ago.
I would lose my sense of smell, either permanently or for some significant length of time. Permanent anosmia as a result of the surgery is very rare, but losing one’s sense of smell for months is not entirely uncommon.
My fears turned out to be unfounded. One of the first things I noticed upon being awakened from anesthesia was that I could smell the plastic of the oxygen mask. On the ride home an hour later, I could smell the smoky exhaust of minivan in front of us. When we ate lunch about three hours after the surgery, I could fully taste it. It was the best piece of lasagna I ever had. As for the black eyes, bleeding, packing, and swollen cheeks – I have none of that. I look normal and can breath more clearly than I have in years. I slept very well last night. Jess even checked once to make sure I was alive because my breathing was silent for the first time in years.
Hooray for better!
The doctor says that polyps usually do come back, but hopefully it will be years or decades before they return. That’s where the allergy shots come in – if I can control the allergic reactions that cause sinus inflammation, that will reduce the chance of the polyps returning.
Today was a brew day – the first one since last winter. I can’t believe I went that long without brewing. Winemaking (and preparing to get into it) took most of my fun-beverage-making attention.
Today’s brew day was different than all the others I’ve ever done. For the first time, I made beer entirely from grain. I used no malt extract syrup or powder. The planning & research I put into it really helped – everything went smoothly and I hit my targets for sugar extraction and color level perfectly. This beer is an American Amber Ale. The recipe comes from Brewing Classic Styles.
We took a lot of pictures along the way. Click here to see them all with detailed descriptions.
About a month ago Jess and I spent the weekend at my dad’s cabin with him & Kathleen. The four of us had a great time. We went to see our state’s elk herd, which was amazing. We also visited a couplewineries in that area, tried to hit up Straub’s eternal tap but were turned away as we got there five minutes before they closed. What kind of “eternal” tap closes, at 1:00 PM no less? We also ate lunch at Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub, as featured on Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food. If you’re ever in Clearfield, PA, eat there. Worth it. Good food & good beer selection. If you’re more hungry than usual, you can have a 26 lb burger.
Elk County has a beautiful & interesting new visitors center, in front of which is the Elk statue that used to be at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Pittsburgh:
