Ted Tschopp's Blog

Fasting for Lent

Well, this is starting the second week of my fast for Lent.  This year I have decided not to eat any solid food (liquids only) when the sun is up.  What this basically means is that I have a nice normal dinner, and everything else is liquid.  I have also decided that I will not be drinking any soda, so all fluids are going to be juices and tea.  Most of the time I will drink several types of tea.  Occasionally I will have an orange juice or a vitamin water.  For lunch I will drink a Jamba juice with a shot of wheat grass.

I have done this fast once before and combined it with a one and a half mile walk because Jamba Juice was that far from work.  This year Jamba juice is much further from work, so I will have to go out of my way to do the walking.

So far everything seems to be working great.  I will post more later this week about how the process is going.

Noodle House: a review

The Noodle House was written up in LA Weekly on Wednesday, June 20, 2007 as one of the 99 essential restraunts in the Los Angeles area by Pulitzer prize winner Jonathan Gold.  The restraunt is located on the border of Arcadia and Temple City,  less than 10 minutes from work.

So is this place worth it?  In a word, yes.  We arrived a bit after 11:30 and were propmtly seated.  Linda, the cook, came to our table with drinks.  It should be noted somewhere in tihs review that the staff at the Noodle House is not in the habit of speaking a lot of English.  Pointing, smiling, and the trust a patron has for their cook is what makes this place magical.  You might not get exactly what you expected, but what you will get is an amazing meal.  If you speak Mandarin and Cantonese you will be able to communicate with a greater degree of accuracy than we did.

We told Linda we wanted to take some more time with the menu.  She returned quickly with a leg of smokey chicken and a smile indicating that we should try it.  She was right, the smiles were returned, it was amazing.  At this point we told her that we wanted some pork dumplings and the "snow vegetables with shredded pork noodles".   She also recommended the leek pies.  With the taste of the chicken still in my mouth we decided to dive into the deep end and trust the chef.  A few minutes later she brought out the leek pies and the dumplings.  I won't try to out write a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist in describing the food, but I will say this, trusting a gifted and talented chef can be one of the most pleseant experiences you can have for lunch.  I will be returning soon.

46 W. Las Tunas Dr., Arcadia, (626) 821-2088. Daily Tues.–Sun. 7 a.m. – 9 p.m.  Cash only.

Martin Luther on Beer

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned the following letter of Martin Luther to a friend of mine after drinking some beer that disagreed with us.  Last night we went out for some more beer, and he brought the letter up again.  I told him to check my blog and I would post the text of the letter.  I figured I might as well, cross post this to several of my blogs. 

I have also added a couple other quotes about beer that I thought were also good. 

During the summer of 1534 Luther and some of his friends twice visited the court at Dessau in order to give spiritual counsel to the sovereign Joachim of Anhalt, who at that time was seriously ill and was experiencing great spiritual struggles. During his second visit to Dessau Luther wrote this personal note to his wife. He tells first of the pending return of Melanchthon, and of the necessity for his own continued stay in Dessau. Then he informs his wife that “yesterday” he drank something which did not agree with him, and asks his wife to send him his whole wine-cellar and some of her homebrewed beer, because otherwise the beer at Dessau, to which he is not accustomed, would make him totally unable to return home. He concludes by commending his household to God.

To my kind, dear lord, Lady Catherine von Bora, Mrs. Doctor Luther, at Wittenberg

Grace and peace in Christ! Dear Sir Katie! I know of nothing to write to you since Master Philip, together with the others, is coming home. I have to remain here longer for the devout Sovereign’s sake. You might wonder how long I shall remain here, or how you might set me free. I think that Master Francis will set me free, just as I freed him—but not so soon.

Yesterday I drank something which did not agree with me, so that I had to sing: If I don’t drink well I have to suffer, and [yet] I do like to do it. I said to myself what good wine and beer I have at home, and also [what] a pretty lady or (should I say) lord. You would do well to ship the whole cellar full of my wine and a bottle of your beer to me here, as soon as you are able; otherwise I will not be able to return home because of the new beer.

With this I commend you to God, together with our young ones and all the members of our household. Amen.

July 29, 1534
The Man whom you Love
Martin Luther, Doctor

Katie must have been quite a woman.  Not only did she ship him the beer, but Martin also mentions her beauty and calls her his lord. 

Table Talk No. 394: Prenatal Baptisms Are Ridiculed December, 1532

“... Besides, the Word is the principal part of baptism. If in an emergency there’s no water at hand, it doesn’t matter whether water or beer is used.”

Baptised by beer, that must be what makes us Lutherans so different.  I think we finally put our finger on it.

Table Talk No. 3483: Why Does the First Drink Taste Best? Between October 27 and December 4, 1536

“How is it that the first drink from a tankard tastes best? Perhaps it’s on account of sin, because our flesh and our lips are sinful.”

I thought this was an interesting quip.  In the fact that our flesh and lips are sinful they lie to us before the first bottle is drunk by telling us how great beer tastes.  Then on the second and third bottle they lie to us and tell us how bad it tastes.  Ahhh, to drink beer without sinful lips and flesh.  I look forward to the day.

Sermon on Soberness and Moderation against Gluttony and Drunkenness, 1 Peter 4:7-11, May 18, 1539

God does not forbid you to drink, as do the Turks; he permits you to drink wine and beer: he does not make a law of it. But do not make a pig of yourself; remain a human being. If you are a human being, then keep your human self-control. Even though we do not have a command of God, we should nevertheless be ashamed that we are thus spit upon by other peoples. If you want to be a Christian, do not argue in this way: Nobody reproaches me, therefore God does not reproach me. So it has been from the time of Noah. And so it was with the Sodomites, who wanted to rape the angels; they were all so drunk they could not find the door. Sodom and Gomorrah perished because of a flood of drunkenness; this vice was punished. God does not tolerate such confusion and inordinate use of his creatures [i.e., food and drink].

I thought this was important to include.  Here Luther uses the term Turk to refer to the Islamic laws.  It should be noted that in Christianity there are very few Thou Shalt Not’s.  Almost everything is permitted.  Even when something is forbidden, such as the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God always provides a way out.  The message of Christianity is not a set of rules on how to appear holy.  Christianity is the message that a Holy God has made sinful people Holy.  Christianity is not about what one does or doesn’t do.  It is about what was done because I could not do what was asked of me.

Diet Coke -No Ice-

I have a friend of mine who for the longest time has always ordered his drinks with NO ICE.  When we first started to hang out I would poke fun at him that we didn’t live in Mexico and you could drink stuff with ice in it.  His response was that the ice watered down the drink and made the drink too cold.  Well, now he has one more reason not to have that ice in his Diet Coke.

A seventh grader from Tampa recently won her school science fair with an experiment that compared levels of bacteria in the toilets and ice machines of five different fast food restaurants. According to 12-year-old Jasmine Roberts, the toilets contained less bacteria 70 percent of the time. For the toilet samples, Roberts flushed each toilet and then scooped up some water with a sterile beaker. For the ice, she took samples from machines inside the restaurants as well as from ice ordered at each drive-through window. The samples were tested at Tampa's Moffitt Cancer Center where Roberts volunteers. The video that accompanies the story has footage of a graph comparing the bacteria in toilets versus ice. Some of the differences are vast. Unfortunately, Roberts doesn't disclose the names of the restaurants.

From: SlashFood 
Orignal Story: Tampa Bays 10

How to make your own Soda

A nice article over at the Guardian.co.uk about how to brew your own soda.

Brew it yourself

One batch of 7x formula will produce three batches cola syrup, or approximately 54 litres of cola.

Step 1: 7x formula:

Using food-grade essential oils, assemble 3.75ml orange oil; 3ml lime oil; 1ml lemon oil; 1 ml cassia oil (reduce cassia content for next production); 0.75ml nutmeg oil; 0.25ml coriander oil (6 drops); 0.25ml lavender oil (6 drops); 0.25ml neroli oil (optional/removed due to high cost).

Using a measuring syringe, measure out the oils into a glass or ceramic container. Keep covered to avoid volatile oil fumes escaping. Then dissolve 10g instant gum arabic (equivalent to 22ml) in 20ml water (low calcium/low magnesium, Volvic is good) with one drop vodka - Cube uses Zubrowka. (Be aware that total quantity of vodka will be 0.0007ml per litre of Cube-cola).

Place the gum/water/vodka mix in a high-sided beaker - stainless steel or glass are best. Using a high-power hammer drill with kitchen whisk attachment, whisk the gum mixture at high speed while your assistant droppers the oils. Mix in steadily with the measuring syringe. Continue to whisk at high speed for 5-7 minutes, or until the oils and water emulsify.

The resulting mixture will be cloudy. Test for emulsification by adding a few drops of the mixture to one glass of water. No oils should be visible on the surface. You now have a successful flavour emulsion, which should hold for several months.

Step 2:The mixers

This makes two allied concentrates, Composition A and Composition B, which can be stored separately before being mixed into cold syrup with the addition of sugar and water.

Composition A

Mix 30 ml double strength caramel colouring (DD Williamson Caramel 050) with 10 ml water. While stirring, add 10ml 7x flavour emulsion (oils/gum/water mix).

Composition B

Mix 3 tsp (10ml) citric acid with 5-10ml water, then sieve in 0.75 tsp (2.75ml) caffeine. Mix thoroughly using a pestle and mortar until caffeine granules are no longer evident. The mixture may behave erratically, turning either white or clear for no apparent reason. If it goes white, add more water. Pass through muslin or jelly bag to remove any anomalies.

At this point, A+B can be packaged separately and later reconstituted into cola syrup.

Step 3: The cola syrup

2 litres water; 2kg sugar

Compositions A & B

Make a sugar syrup (mix in a cooking pot on low heat to dissolve quickly) using 1.5 litres of the water and all the sugar. Filter if unsure. Mix Composition A into the remaining 500ml water. Add Composition B, then the sugar syrup. You now have 3 litres Cube-Cola syrup or approx 18 litres cola.

Step 4: The cola

As required, make up your cola as a 5:1 mix, five parts fizzy water to one part cola syrup. Cube uses 350ml syrup in a 2l bottle of Tesco Ashford Mountain Spring.

This cola recipe is released under the GNU general public licence.

Ice Cream Eating Championship

Who knew they held these sorts of things.  I love ice cream, but 1.75 gallons in eight minutes sounds like a challenge to me. 

Click here for more info: Ice cream eating championship

Trip on Sunday

I'm going to the http://www.redpearlkitchen.com/  on Sunday at 7:00 PM.

Grilled Cheese.... Yummy

Today there are some rather good recipe's over at Slashfood for Cheese Sandwiches. I must try these.

Grilled cheese for breakfast cream cheese stuffed french toast

Grilled cheese and asparagus