10,000 Vinyasas

Well, we mourn the loss of our teacher, who is moving back to the East Coast in a couple of months. However, we hope to be taking some more teacher training to extend our knowledge and experience, while deepening our practice. (My use of the second person probably reflects the amount of wine I’ve consumed…look for first person in the next post). Really appreciating the mental and physical satisfaction of teaching at this moment. Our acro-yoga practice is continuing and reflects more progress, although the rate seems to be slowing, but the physical challenge remains.

Well, I guess this was inevitable…found an incredibly cheap coffee roaster (the FreshRoast on our local craigslist the other day and snapped it up. Actually, it fits in perfectly with my other coffee purchases–cheap and functional, allowing maximum learning before I decide to upgrade. So far, I’m still learning, but once again wondering why in the world do people go to place like Starbucks? The coffee is inferior, the beans are stale and burnt, and the espresso is execreable. It’s really easy to roast your own beans…takes about five minutes and some knowledge about when to stop the process. Just another geek thing, I guess. Anyway, I suppose my coffee education is complete (of course, we need some more time to refine our knowledge, but that’s just expected).

Well, this month has been very bad, in terms of misfortune to myself and the people that we know. However, we realize in these situations that yoga serves as a lifeline to those afflicted with stress and life changing events. Many thanks to all my friends, who also made things easier, oftentimes merely by just their presence. I’ve been keeping up with Acro-Yoga as best I can, and I am again impressed with the amazing physical workout it offers, as well as the calming influence afterwards. I’ve also deepened my yoga practice (my physical abilities have improved somewhat, see Acro, above) but the meditative aspects of yoga have been revealing themselves to me more lately. My latest ambition is to take Tim Miller’s Ashtanga teacher training in July in Encinitas, CA. I will be taking his workshop here in March, and I expect to make a decision shortly after. Here’s hoping for a much better, wiser, happier, and more prosperous new year!

Here’s a Thanksgiving tradition at my house (actually, my parents’, which is where Turkey Day takes place since time immemorial), that I started when I dug the recipe out of the newspaper (back when we had a newspaper). Now, it seems that most of the family expects me to appear with it, so here goes:

Almond Squash Soup

4 tablespoons butter
1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
1 leek, white part only, diced
1 small carrot, diced
1/2 stalk celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
4 ounces (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup flour
4 medium yellow squash, diced into 3/4 inch pieces
1 1/2 tablespoons rosemary, minced
5 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup toasted almonds
1 cup half and half, or as needed
salt and pepper to taste

Melt 4 tablespoons butter in medium sized pan, then add onion, leek, carrot, celery and garlic, and saute gently until tender, about 8-10 minutes.
While vegetables are cooking, make a roux. Melt 4 ounces butter in separate pan, add flour, stirring in well. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, about 8 minutes. Remove roux from heat and set aside until needed.
When vegetables are tender, add squash and saute 8 more minutes. Add rosemary and stock, and bring mixture to a boil. Add prepared roux, stir to blend, and allow mixture to cook and thicken about 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and puree in blender, along with toasted almonds, until smooth. Heat half and half and add to soup until desired consistency is reached. Season with salt and pepper as desired.
Yield: 8 servings

I modify this recipe somewhat, depending upon (yes!) what I have in the kitchen. Also, in the past I’ve used skim milk instead of half and half and whole milk. I think the flavor doesn’t suffer.

This is a real conundrum; our traditional advice has been to eschew full fat dairy and take the low/no fat versions, because full fat contains harmful saturated fats. Well, we are now at a crossroads, with some saying that some very healthful fats are contained in full fat dairy, and various enzymes and such. Also, there’s the anecdotal argument that we used to consume full fat dairy products and we weren’t obese, you know, back in the day. I really don’t think there’ s a good definitive answer at this point, although a lot of people think they know. At any rate, here’s an interesting technical article about some of the beneficial effects of cow’s milk.

I found this quirky little 11 ounce bottle, once again, on closeout at my local Costco, and picked up a bunch. Interesting beer; the “session” refers to the fact that it’s made for drinking several at a time. The relatively lower alcohol content (5.1 ABV) is proof (hah!) of this, but the taste is quite a bit better than a typical American lager. It’s not Sierra Nevada Celebration, but it’s got body and flavor, and for $3.75/6 pack, it ain’t bad. Here’s a pic:

My knee has been deemed safe to practice, although it still hurts when I take it to lotus, and my right rotator cuff injury, which I haven’t mentioned until now, has started healing with the help of daily exercises, and I’ve continued to enjoy my acro-yoga practice. My progress so far: my handstand has gotten slightly better, my kickovers from backbend have gotten much better, and I’ve started practicing scorpion from headstand. Nice…the practice is intense and demanding, which is what I normally like in my exercise. I subbed quite a few classes last week, and really enjoyed that. My teaching has gotten much better, at least in my own eyes. I have a number of people who come to my classes with regularity, which is quite nice, but it’s also fun to teach to people who aren’t familiar with your own style. And that’s the news thats fit to print…

Well, I have put off writing about my newest “hobby” until now, but I’m having so much fun with it I just have to share. I’ve always (ok, for a long time) liked good coffee, but until recently have confined myself to just strong drip coffee in some cheap coffeemaker, or an Aerobie Aeropress. However, one sometimes has to just let things take you wherever they do, and this resulted in a rather large amount of time spent reading about making fine espresso on the internets (here we have Coffeegeek and Home-Barista), shopping on fleabay and craigslist, and other activities typical for starting something new like this. Well, let’s get to the distilled wisdom first and then show some pictures.

Things I learned about espresso making:

1. The grinder is the most important element. Without this, no good espresso is possible. Here we are talking expensive burr grinders, not cheap “whirlybirds” or pretend Chinese knockoffs. The best grinders are those made for commercial applications and may actually cost upwards of $600-$800 new, or even more. (One can find something perfectly acceptable for much less…see below).
2. Freshly roasted beans are also essential, which means you need at least a source close to you, or fast shipping from somewhere else. I was surprised and pleased to discover that, as ignorant and backward as San Antonio is, there are at least two local roasters here. Of course, you can also actually roast your own beans, which, needless to say, I haven’t tried yet, but it’s probably coming. By “fresh” here, we mean used within 7-14 days of roasting. Old store-bought beans don’t cut it; that includes Starbucks.
3. There is such a thing as “barista technique.” We’re talking here about how fine the grind is (varies according to kind of bean and roast), how full the basket is, how hard to tamp down the grounds, the stirring technique (yes, actually stirring the ground beans in the basket), how long it takes the pressurized water to go through the filter, and a host of other issues. Even the quality of the water is considered important. The term “coffee geek” surely applies here, since only people like me would be interested in this stuff. However, the miracle of the internets is such that one can connect with all these folks and receive their collective knowledge at your fingertips.

It’s odd to realize that the machine is perhaps the least important element of making espresso, since you’d think it would be first. It apparently is quite true, though, that with a few modifications, a cheap Starbucks machine can produce pretty good espresso. Of course, as ones taste becomes more refined, perhaps that machine will turn out to be inadequate. Forum posts on this subject refer to a disease called “upgradeitis,” which can end up with people paying several thousand dollars (!) for equipment. Yikes! I’m fairly certain that I’m not really subject to this, beyond a certain point, and in fact, my purchases so far have been of the outstanding bang for the buck variety, which we’ll get to in a minute. One of the things that really got me interested in the whole business was trying really excellent espresso at a local shop or two. Apparently, though, there’s quite a bit of bad espresso lurking out there in retail establishments, so watch out. A good indication, in my eyes, is if the place doesn’t offer a “to-go” option with espresso (this indicates that the owners realize that you really can’t have good espresso to go; the warm ceramic cup is essential).

Since the grinder was the first priority, I started there, looking at used ones, reading reviews, and generally getting up to speed. Strangely, although there are some values in used commercial grinders (the Mazzer minis, Super Jollys, Macaps), there was a recent entrant for home use, the Baratza Vario, which grabbed my attention. The advantages of the Vario were the small counter footprint (some of the commercial grinders are quite tall and imposing), the little to no wastage of ground beans (some grinders are notorious for retaining grounds; I’m looking at you, Rancilio Rocky!), and the flexibility of being able to switch from espresso grind to drip to press (many commercial grinders are primarily for espresso and switching is tedious). On top of all these advantages, I found an outstanding deal on fleabay with a 10% off coupon and was able to acquire this appliance for $359 shipped to my door. It’s value upon arrival was obvious; I had previously been using a Starbucks Barista burr grinder ($50 during a clearance sale), which could produce adequate espresso grinds for my Barista espresso machine (also acquired during clearance sale for $112.50), but the difference in quality between the two was vast even to my inexperienced eyes. Here’s a picture of my new grinder:

With the grinder out of the way, it was time to begin looking at machines. As I mentioned, I had a Starbucks Barista (rebranded Saeco) which produced what I thought was decent espresso (at least until I started tasting the really good stuff at the roasters here), but I really felt that I couldn’t get the full expression without some modifications (taking apart the pressurized portafilter, and installing a PID), some of which would cost more than I paid for the machine in the first place. My alternative was to shop for a machine with more potential, without really understanding much of what I was looking for. As sometimes happens in these cases, I stumbled almost by accident onto what I now think was my perfect first “real” espresso machine: the La Pavoni Europiccola. This machine is a “lever” type, which means that the user controls the pressure through pulling down on the lever, along with the timing and just about every other variable that a semi-auto or automatic machine might do for you. It is said that if you can learn how to pull good shots on a lever, you can pull them on anything else. Of course, the drawback is that you have to spend the time playing with these variables, and learning, but this didn’t faze me; I like messing around with stuff like this, and it seemed like a good fit for the way I like to make espresso (no milk drinks, a couple of shots in the morning, no shots for company, etc.). If I’d had different espresso “needs,” I probably wouldn’t have considered this machine. The other thing I liked (hell, fell in love with) about this machine was it’s intrinsic beauty: it’s a work of kitchen art. Shiny chrome little hissing dragon…I loved it when I saw the ad for it on craigslist, and it really makes a nice addition to the kitchen. It also appealed to my practical side: these have been made for many many years, with little modifications, and parts are plentiful. Easy to work on, and so forth. Back to this particular machine; I feel like I practically got it for the salvage value: $175.00! Unbelievable. That same week, I watched another one go on fleabay for $425, so I think I got a nice deal on this. Here’s a picture of the Europiccola:

I really can’t describe how much fun I’m having making espresso with this thing, except to say that several times now I’ve made espresso shots in the afternoon, something I’ve never done before. It is true, it does take some time to get familiar with this, but the potential is just enormous. Considering it’s something I pretty much do every day, it seems like money well spent.

Well, here’s something I though would never happen...I appeared on a local television show and did some yoga. Considering that I’m coming up on my third anniversary of practicing yoga, this is something that really made me stop and think. How did I get here? I think that, and this is kinda funny because the rest of my life has always been so planned, so cautious, so little to do with my feelings and instincts, yoga has taken me in a direction I never thought possible, and the interesting thing is, I’m not in control of it at all. I just do whatever feels right, and things like Wednesday just kinda happen.

Practice notes: attended Ken’s Eight Limbs in Eight Hours (awesome title!) workshop on Sunday, which included the full primary series. I had forgotten how rigorous and thorough this practice is, since it’s been a few months since I did it, and oh did my knee hurt afterwards. Guess I’m not ready quite yet. Have been attending Acro-Yoga (yeah, like you couldn’t tell) and really still enjoying the physical challenge of it, as well as the warmth and closeness of the people involved (they are very very supportive, which is so nice when you’re doing extreme physical activities). Hats off to my friends!

Yes, I do actually appear in this one, briefly, since I am still a beginner at this. I am having so much fun with it, though. Here it is…