The 8 inch Chef’s Knife
To those who are more experienced in the kitchen this is a dead obvious one, but when set out to buy kitchen knives for the first time it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the many different types of knives out there. The first one I bought was a 10 inch meat cleaver, because bigger is better. Right? Well, this knife is large but not oversized. The blade is wide enough for slicing deep into a tomato, or crushing a clove of garlic, but not so heavy that you could hammer nails with it. It’s important to keep your knife well maintained to get the best performance out of it. Get a good knife steel and run your blade across it every time before you put it back in the block; don’t wait for it to get dull. Get a good knife sharpener with coarse and fine edges.

The things I look for in a good chef’s knife are:

• Balance and Comfort; how the weight of the knife blade feels in comparison to the handle when you hold it. Is the grip comfortable and positioned so you won’t bang your knuckles on the cutting board?
• Construction; always pick a forged knife over a stamped one. The tang of the blade should run the full length of the handle.
• Blade Design; go for the straight edge, not serrated.

The Vegetable Peeler
I suppose if you had ninja knife skills a vegetable peeler would be unnecessary, but not being a martial artist of such great caliber, I would prefer to keep my fingertips intact. I use my peeler mostly for potatoes, which is why you want to get one with a good gouging tip for taking out the eyes. It’s also handy for shredding carrots down into ribbons, which are great to throw in salads.

Microplane Zester
This is an item that I long discounted as being a luxury tool (and to a degree it still is), so I avoided buying one. My dad swears by his though, and so at Christmas I found it in my stocking. Even then I thought, “Oh jeez, more drawer clutter,” because I really hadn’t zested that much and didn’t think it could much better of a job than my box grater. Now I know that there definitely is a difference. This tool could be used on a number of different foods, but the two that I most frequently zest are Parmesan cheese and citrus peels. It grates Parmesan into fine ribbons that are so light and fluffy they melt effortlessly on top of hot pasta, and it does so surprisingly fast. Citrus zest from a box grater seems to just glop up and stick to the insides. With the Mircoplane zest stays much drier and distributes better in your mixes. On top of all this: the Microplane is safer than a cheese grater. I’m sure you could graze yourself with it if you weren’t careful but the injury would be far less severe than what a typical grater could do.

The Immersion Blender
Blenders are an essential kitchen appliance for turning solid food into liquids. A powerful, upright blender that can reduce an iPhone to dust may be impressive to watch on YouTube, but how often do you really need to blend your electronic gadgets? For most of my blending tasks I prefer something more compact. One problem with an upright blender it that your food sometimes sticks to the edge of the blender walls and you have to stop and scrape the sides down with a spatula. Being hand-controlled, the immersion blender’s blade can be used as a scraper in these situations and your workflow goes on uninterrupted. My favorite, blended morning treat is 8 ounces of milk, a banana, a cup of yogurt, a heaping spoonful of peanut butter and a handful of blueberries. The immersion blender is easy to clean because it only has three parts: the motor grip, the blade, and the blending cup. If I’m making a smoothie I’ll just drink it right out of the blending cup to avoid having to wash a glass afterwards. The limits of the immersion blender are the amount of liquid it can hold and the ability to crush ice. So if you’re planning to serve up a pitcher of margaritas then that would be a good time to get the upright blender off the shelf.

The Citrus Juicer
Ever since I began squeezing my own orange juice I can’t imagine going back to the carton. I’m also a lemonade addict, and like to be in control of the sweet to sour ratio. There’s a lot of citrus juicers out there in the market, but simpler is definitely better for this job. The juicer I’m using here just has a top piece for juicing and filtering out the pulp, and a bottom piece to catch the juice. If you were regularly making gallons of juice then maybe you could justify buying an electric model, but I rarely find myself juicing more than three to four fruits at a time.

The Digital Scale
For anyone who is serious about baking, a good kitchen scale is an indispensable item. Flour is finicky. The density of flour is not always consistent with it’s measure of volume (depending on a range of environmental factors). The weight of the flour is the best indicator of exactly how much is going into your mix, and with some recipes even a slight error can result in disaster. I like my scale because it has a weighing platform that I can fit a whole mixing bowl on and a large digital display for easy reading. The display can even detach from the platform if you have an extra wide item to weigh. A useful trick I’ve learned with the scale is using it to portion out batter for cakes, and cookies, and the like. It can be hard to eyeball an equal amount of batter when you’re pouring it into two cake pans. But if you know the weight it’s pretty easy to divide it in half.

The Rubber Spatula
This is one tool I can’t get enough of. I’m about ready to get up and go buy another one right now just thinking about it. Seriously though, I would get two of these: one for sweet and one or savory, because the rubber tends to absorbs flavors. A good spatula should be resistant to high heat, have a large, flexible blade, and have a solid, comfortable grip. What makes this tool so important is that it can bend to the shape of any surface you press it against; from the walls of a mixing bowl to the crevices of a saucepan. It’s gentle enough to fold fluffy, egg whites into a meringue but strong enough to scrape caramelized onions from the bottom of a hot skillet.

The Whisk
I long doubted the power of the whisk. I didn’t see what it could do that couldn’t be accomplished with a fork and some elbow grease. Of course, back then I wasn’t cooking much more than scrambled eggs. The whisk is like a fork multiplier; It does the job of ten forks. And that comes in handy when you’ve got a lot a work ahead of you.

The Measuring Spoons
Not all measuring spoons are equal… I mean for the most part they should be equal in volume, but in design some stand out over the rest. I came across these one day and knew instantly that I needed them because they solved a problem that I had run into numerous times. The spoons that I was using before were too wide to fit into a typical spice jar. Even the half teaspoon was too fat and clunky to fit where it needed to go. I found myself delicately pouring my cumin into the spoon over a napkin so I could capture any spilled spices and return them to the jar. The new spoons are simply narrower and longer than other spoons. Even the tablespoon reaches easily down to last bit of seasoning.

The Shears
There are lots of cutting tools to choose from in the kitchen, but sometimes you just wish you had a plain, old pair of scissors. The ones in the office desk are just too flimsy and the ones out in the garage are rusted shut. Kitchen shears are built for their task, which is mostly cutting open packaging, but they cut through chicken joints nicely too. This set by J.A. Henckels comes apart at the hinge, making it easy to clean. Opposite sharp side is a knurled side which is handy for cracking crab shells or twisting the cap off an old ketchup bottle.

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Fripp Island, SC

The south eastern coastline is amazingly different from what I’ve grown accustomed to here in California. Rather than a solid strip of beach and rocky cliffs that go on unending for hundreds of miles, the Carolina sea front is a network of waterways and small, flat islands. This marsh a grey area between the land and sea, making it an ideal habitat for a wide range of wildlife.

Savannah, GA

When it came time to leave Fripp Island we decided to head south into Georgia and check out the historic district of Savannah for the day. There are parks on just about every other block; crowded by old oak and magnolia trees with their beards of spanish moss. I was struck by the amazing amount of detail in each building’s design; in every stone and fence were characteristics of a time when distinction trumped conformity. We topped it all off with a bowl of shrimp n’ grits and a visit to the old Fort Jackson.

Charleston, SC

Savannah is a tough act to follow, but Charleston has some charm of its own. In terms of historical significance it seems to pull more weight with its Civil War monuments, towering memorials and steeples. After a hefty lunch of fried catfish at Poogan’s Porch we headed over to the aquarium to check out the otters and an albino alligator.

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The world of computer printing devices is large and confusing, but the manufacturers have made it easy for the average consumer by designing these inexpensive machines that purportedly produce illustrious, full-color, photo quality images. On the outside it seems like the obvious choice. Do I want to be able to print in color instead of plain ol’ greyscale? Well yes, certainly I do! Do I want to pay a lot of money for this device? No way, I’m on a budget! Do I want to replace ink cartridges every three months regardless of how much I actually used them? Oh yeah… wait, what?

It didn’t take long before I was hit by the reality of the ink jet phenomenon. These machines are probably the biggest scam that exists on the computer peripherals market. I’ve owned three of them since I bought that first computer in 1999, and will never buy one again if I can help it. All of these machines died on me after about a year of unfaithful service. I still have one at work that sits under my desk, but only because there’s an attached scanner that does still work. The printer part of it no longer functions. The problems that I’ve experienced with ink jet printer isn’t just limited to the cheaper ones either. I’ve had the displeasure of having to operate some $500+ models during my time working at Platt College, and they suffered from the same issues as any other I have used.

The number one problem with these things is their namesake ink jets. The hassle of cartridges begins from the moment you have to figure out which ones to buy, and then shell out a good chunk of cash for them. Don’t forget you’ll also need expensive, high-quality, ink jet specific paper so that your colors won’t bleed through the page like a Sharpie pen. But this is just what you have to do if you want to print glorious colors right? So you get the fresh cartridges to your office, install them and wait fifteen minutes for the machine to calibrate its damned self. While it’s whirring and buzzing you find yourself a nice photo to make your first print, or if you’re a nut like me you make a test pattern in Adobe Illustrator so you can check the color output. The noise finally subsides and it’s time to fire up the jets. The machine begins printing and you sit there watching it like a hawk as it comes out line by line by line by… There’s lines all across your print. So begins the endless process of trouble shooting the inconsistencies in your image. Did you run the head cleaning program? Did you set the output level correctly? Did you use the right paper settings? Maybe you just have to print a few more out to warm the heads up. Maybe it’ll clear up after it finishes drying. If you’re lucky enough, you might get a few good shots out of the thing but this won’t last for long.

Eventually the heads die. They become clogged beyond repair. You check your ink levels in the software and it’s saying you have 50% cyan, but there’s not a drop to be found on your print. Meanwhile there are plenty of drops of magenta, but they look like they were sprayed on with a garden hose. Looks like you’ll just have to go get some more cartridges. These old ones you could take to a recycling center, but it’s halfway across town and they’re not open on Sundays… aww, fuck it. Just throw ‘em in the trash. What I’ve been told it that in order for the heads to stay clog free you have to use them on a regular basis. Which I guess is about six times a day.

I think I could go on for days about how much I hates these things but what it boils down to is that these consumer grade ink jet printers are a total gimmick product. They attract buyers with their supposedly amazing features and low initial price, but hide their long term flaws and maintenance costs. Then the consumer is trapped in their dreams of creating beautiful color prints at the push of a button even though they understand nothing about how real printing is done. If I really needed to print a photo I’d want it to be the best quality I could possibly get, and that would be better handled by a photo processing center. I’ve had two digital photo teachers that swear by Costco for their photo printing. Hell, if you need some quick and dirty color reports printed you can get it done on a Kinko’s copier.

After burning through so many of these machines I sat down and thought about what kinds of things I really needed to print. The majority of my printing wasn’t photos or artwork but documents. Plain text documents. I was printing lots of maps too, which may look nice in color but is hardly necessary.

So the logical choice for my next printer was a greyscale laser, and I have to say that it’s the best printer I have ever owned. It’s fast for one thing. It spits out pages in a matter of seconds. Not as fast as a photocopy machine but for my intents and purposes it’s just fine. The pages stack nicely on top of the machine and not it some obtrusive drying tray. I’ve owned the laser printer for more than two years and have printed over a thousand pages on it. Not once have I changed the cartridge. I actually bought an extra cartridge when I got the machine (still being in my ink jet mindset) but it’s just sitting, opened in the box for the day when I’ll actually need it. The cartridge comes with instructions on how to send it back to the factory once the toner is exhausted so that it can be recycled. I can run cheap paper through it and still get crisp lines. I don’t think they even make a high quality laser paper. It’s just unnecessary. The laser printer cost me a little over two hundred bucks, but it’s reliability more than compensates for that.

The only ink jet printer I’ve used that I can say works well is the big one that we have at the office. It’s about five feet wide and costs twenty thousand dollars. We’ve had our share of difficulties with it, mostly software related, but once we got all of the settings straightened out it started making some nice stuff. But this machine is a completely different animal from the consumer level printers out there. This is an industrial machine for businesses that make prints for profit. So unless you’re a pro graphics shop you probably don’t need an ink jet printer.

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This morning Damion came into the office all excited about a coyote he saw out in the parking lot. Taking any opportunity I can to get out of my chair, I grabbed the camera and went outside. Turns out I could have just turned around in my chair because the thing was right outside the window. It was surprisingly calm given that Damion, Jeff, and I were staring at it from only about 40 feet away, but the beast seemed more concerned with it’s breakfast. On today’s menu was head of domestic feline, garnished lightly with dirt and grass clippings. It wasn’t so much gruesome to watch as it was to listen to the crunching of canine teeth on cat skull.

I lost my own cat recently. His fate was probably similar to the one here. Although, I can’t be sure since he just vanished, but coincidentally there were signs posted on the mailbox about coyote sightings only a few days after Bucky’s disappearance. It’s unfortunate but it’s nature. This is their land, not ours. We are their inconvenience, and for that they demand a sacrifice whenever possible.

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After only a year of somewhat faithful service I’ve had to let the beach cruiser go. Not that I didn’t enjoy using it, although I had to deal with some chain drops here and there. I just wasn’t getting much use out of it here in Yorba Linda and there’s no room for another bike in the apartment (or so my girlfriend claims). I’ve had quite a good run with it though. Originally I was just in need of a bike for my 2008 Burning Man trip. Although the Burners’ guide recommended bringing an old used bike I was more inclined to having a cool new bike that was inexpensive, and I knew I could probably get a good deal on a beach cruiser from American Flyer Bicycles.

The Surf Cycle came “as is” which meant merely a few paint chips in the finish. I could live with that. The plan was to adorn the thing with crazy crap anyhow. So I made a stop at the local dollar store and grabbed up some fake roses, daisies, and ivy, and two rubber snakes that I could wrap around the tubes and chain stays, but this was only the garnish. I needed a heavy hitter for the centerpiece. I found what I was looking for in a store on ebay called VDAVISHORNS, which sells almost nothing except animal horns (mostly those of Texas longhorn steers and bighorn sheep). Some of these skulls were selling for as high as $350, but there were other less desirable shapes and sizes going for as low as $65. So I put in a bid for one of the more economical sets and waited for the auction to draw to a close. “This should be easy,” I thought. The guy had rows of things, each held up for the camera by a skanky, mexican mamacita. I had never realized how competitive ebay actually was until then. Thinking I had it in the bag, I was ready to put up my feet and relax, but somehow I got bid out at the last billionth of a second! I was furious at losing but my lesson was learned.

I knew that Damion had wasted a ton of time and money buying John Elway junk on ebay, so I asked him for some tips on bidding. If I didn’t win this time I was going to be screwed, because there wouldn’t be any more auctions closing in time to get the thing delivered before my trip. This time I ran two bids simultaneously and stayed aggressive on bidding at the bitter end. I was running the risk that I might actually end up winning both, but if that happened then I would just sell one or gift it. Finally, I did end up winning one skull and had it expressed delivered to the tune of about $85.

With the centerpiece in hand it was time to dress up the bike. I cinched down the skull with zip ties and hemp twine to the extra wide handlebars. The bones fit in like a glove, giving the option of steering with the grips or the ends of the horns. To top it all off, Dan loaned me a string of LEDs which I taped into the eye sockets and ran along the underside of the top tube to a battery pack under the saddle. When it was all lit up at night it looked like something straight out of hell. The Surf N’ Turf was born!

Into the cargo van it went, and we were off to the burn. The bike earned me a few compliments around Black Rock City, but it was a mere drop in the bucket of everything else going on there. I was still quite proud of my creation though. Riding along with Dan, whose bike was wrapped in plastic bones, we were shouted at by a man atop a parade-float car, “Hey, why don’t you bury those things?!” The vibration from riding around BRC did cause most of the teeth to fall out of the skull, but these came in handy for trading and as gifts.

Upon our return I decided it would be best to dismantle my creation. As cool as it would’ve been to ride such a beast in the middle of downtown Fullerton I might as well have put a big “Steal Me!” sign on it. The bike needed a thorough cleaning anyhow since it was soaked in corrosive playa dust. Even after restoring the cruiser to it’s original state it still would turn heads as I rode it around town. It was great bike for lazy Sunday rides or a quick trip to the liquor store.

I was sad to let this bike go, but it’s better served to someone who can use it than to just let it collect dust on my patio. The steer skull now hangs on the wall above my fireplace. One of the hardest parts about moving is learning to let go of old things. I find that I put a lot of sentimental value into stuff that I might not even have much practical use for. I really want and need to simplify. The weight of all this junk sometimes feels like an anchor, but you never know when you might want to play that guitar again or pull out the old marker pen set.

Anyhow, so long my friend, wherever the path may take you!

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So hang in there while I piece this thing together. There will be a new template design and image gallery soon. I look forward to seeing what becomes of this and who will stop by.

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