Muchacho Polaco

Matt and Dana invited us over on Saturday for wood oven pizza night with some friends of theirs named Byron and Sara. Byron is from South Africa and Sara is from somewhere else, but both have lived some time in Minnesota. Byron has some sort of PhD in engineering (or physics) and Sara has a master’s in some sort of health field. She works at Banner where Matt often works, though they all know each other from Midtown.

They are a nice couple, despite Byron’s misguided economic convictions (though the whiskey probably didn’t help). Even so, we did another dinner night on Sunday so we could hang out some more and find an excuse for more good food. Yun made carnitas and they were spectacular as always. Steering far from economics and politics seemed like a good strategy and made for much more enjoyable dinner conversation (conversation where the women present were not visibly uncomfortable). Byron is really into making bread which more than compensates for his Keynesian silliness. There was talk of doing a bread day where we make a large quantity of breads for personal use (and give aways). That would be awesome.

I am loving my new dehydrator. I try to use it every day. Yesterday I did 3lbs of ground beef into spicy jerky. It is so good. Today I did a bag of serranos and jalapeños into powder. I cut them, dehydrated them, and then ground them. The powder is brutally hot, so I think it will make a nice match for making bread.

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Yun and I moved back to the US just in time to be quarantined to our home. We have been trying to keep busy with various projects and so far that’s been going pretty well.

Last week I found someone giving away this hideous looking dresser:

It is hard to pass up free, especially with all of this time on our hands. So today I finished sanding it and finished the paint. The cumulative total time was only a few hours (with lots of hours in between coats). I really like how it came out and again, I am thrilled with the price.

I put in in my new office which is great because now I have a little extra space to store things. Having given away most of our things before our exodus, we have struggled a bit to find places to store things. Also, our closets in the new house are a bit smaller than what we had. Even though we gave away over half of our clothes, we are still struggling with finding places to put things.

The dogs are enjoying their new backyard. We spend a considerable amount of time back here, mostly because the world is on lockdown and it’s the best place to be in our house.

Sergio led a legit study tonight, the second in his series of 4, each addressing an element of what it means to be within the reformed tradition. Tonight he tackled covenant theology and did a mighty fine job.

We currently have an abundance of grapefruit as we have friends with trees. We couldn’t possibly eat them all, but they taste pretty good dehydrated.

Yun and I have been buying some old furniture on craigslist to replace what we sold prior to our move. Neither of us are fans of furniture made from particle board, or other cheap feeling options. And as it turns out, you can buy really solid items locally for next to nothing that people are trying to get rid of. We bought a nice dresser that is really solid. We also bought an oak table, also solid, but rather quite ugly.

Yun had the idea to paint it with chalk paint and it turned out rather nice in comparison to what it looked like before.

She did a couple coats of varnish to finish it off and it’s held up pretty well to use so far.

We have a rather large nopal cactus (pear cactus) in our new front yard which we both think is rather ugly. So I thought it would be worth trying to prepare a piece for consumption.

There are a lot of varieties of this type of cactus and not all are for consumption. But as it turns out, the one we have works fine for that. I’ve never been a big fan of the taste (it mostly lacks any), but with enough seasoning, it can begin to resemble a green bean. Even so, I am always a fan of free, so perhaps we could make use of this front yard monstrosity.

I ordered a dehydrator a few days ago. In light of the current pandemic, Amazon states delivery time would be in excess of a month. In reality, in only took a couple days. I put it to work immediately with some apples.  They turned out pretty magnifico, but the lesson learned was to cut them consistently thin. After the first apple cut, I used a guillotine and that made things much easier.

Dried apples make enjoyable snacks and a much healthier option than what I normally snack on.

After the fruit, I moved on to try my first batch of beef jerky. That was my primary motive in ordering the dehydrator. First-world beef jerky is ridiculously expensive. So making it yourself for a substantial reduction in cost was too attractive to pass up.

I bought a kilo of beef bottom round as it was one of the more affordable options and a quick google search at the store led me to the conclusion it was also one of the best cuts you can get for jerky.

I marinated the meat with whatever I could find in the fridge. Terriyaki, soy sauce, and lots of salsa with chiltepin. As with the apples, the challenge was to cut the meat thin enough. I froze the meat for about 20 minutes to make it easier, but it was more difficult than I realized. As such, there were quite a few pieces that were too thick.

Overall I’d say it was a success, but given my lack of will power, I ate half of it in about 10 minutes which made me feel a bit sick and no longer wanting any more beef jerky any time soon.

Today I plan on trying some fruit leathers (as they’re called), which is just blended fruit poured out into the dehydrator and dried to make what is essentially a fruit roll up. I always loved those in my earlier years, but they were always expensive, so it was not a regular option.

I came across this old photo in the archives recently. It is of the drill hall on Beatty Street in Vancouver. I have many memories as a child in that place.