Roasting coffee at Karma

We are fortunate in Sudbury to have an outstanding coffee roaster, Karma!  Karma is an artisan small batch roaster.  Karma roast  roughly 30 different coffees and will roast to order!  In addition to a modest retail store, Karma sells online and wholesales to select local retailers and restaurants. 


After I retired, I began talking with Dave, the owner, about roasting coffee with a view to a part time job.  A couple of weeks ago we spoke and I'm not learning how to roast coffee!  There's rather more to it than I would have thought with considerable subtlety in running the roaster to consistently produce a top tier roast.  One of the great things about working at Karma is the chance to try different coffee and roasts.  I'm learning that there is a rather big of world of coffees.


Here's a brief video about Karma.

Got the deck garden going after three days work

Well, it took three days but the deck garden is more or less done!

Why a deck garden you ask.  Well I live on Whispering Pine and there are indeed many very tall mature pines that create lots and lots of shade.  So much shade that I'm not actually able to grow grass on what little yard I have.  Looks something like this.

Trees equal shade

But I do get a fair bit of sun on one of my decks.  So I decided to try a container garden on the deck.  Here's what it looks like.

I've had considerable luck growing things on other decks so hopefully this will work well.  If it does I'll add some other containers.

Great bread recepie

Found a great bread recipe here.  It turned out very good though I changed it a bit with over much yeast and not enough salt.  Still the results were the best so far.

Ciabatta loaf - Over wide.  I should have made two loafs.

Good crust and texture.

Outstanding texture!

After we eat the bread I've on hand I'll make another loaf following the recipe precisely and making two loafs.

Bike ride around the neighborhood with BB

BB and I took another short bike ride yesterday around the neighborhood while we waited for the bread to rise. Bread turned out OK, one of the best so far, but still not what I'm looking for.

Outing to Scituate - Great day.

BB and I drove to Scituate for the day.  Had lunch on the deck at the Mill Wharf restaurant.  It was a bit windy but still nice enough.  Had an interesting waiter, a retired policeman from Alaska.  Good fun.  Stopped in at the Roman Table to buy some olive oil and vinegar.  It's the only place we've found where you can buy real balsamic vinegar!  It's expensive but what a treat.  Their olive oils are also outstanding.

On the way back we noticed a bike path along the road.  It's not on Google but I'll try to add it.

Tomorrow is a yard work and pay bills day.

John and Marie over for dinner

Our neighbors and good friends John and Marie were over for dinner last night.  We'd hoped to eat out on the deck but not withstanding a couple of days of teasingly nice weather it's gone a bit cool again.  Still, I cleaned up the grill and grilled leg of lamb, and eggplant.  Rather than grill the leg of lamb whole I went ahead and butterflied it.  We also tried an interesting noodle salad and a wonderful sweet kale dish.  Great meal!

Pan-Seared Sea Scallops

How To Make Pan-Seared Sea Scallops: Step-By-Step Tutorial With Photos

The grocer had scallops on sale yesterday.  So tonight it's pan-seared scallops and salad.  They are rather easy to make just don't shake the pan.

Herb-Crusted Chuck Roast, chocolate, and a rainy day

I'm not a great fan of chuck roast but this one (Herb-Crusted Chuck Roast Recipe - Allrecipes.com) is really good.  There's a new Target near us.  While I'm no great fan of big box stores, this one has a grocery of a sort and some great prices on Angus Chuck Roast.  It turned out outstanding.  Made some herb new potatoes and zucchini as well and then French vanilla ice cream with home made pecan chocolate sauce for desert.


Beyond good food, today is cool, low 30s and rainy.  Good day to run errands then stay indoors and read.

Ants Climb A Tree

Mrs. Chiang's Szechwan Cookbook : Ants Climb A Tree

Mine looks like this but I forgot to actually take a photo

Wonderful dinner last night.  This is one of our favorites.  There are many many recipes but this is the one I use, sort of.

The dish tends to be rather salty because of all the soy sauce.  So I replace the 1/4 cup of soy and all the water with chicken stock.  It's still a bit salty but delicious.

I've also experimented with replacing the hot pepper paste with hot bean paste.  Again a bit of adjustment to the quantities is necessary as they can both be very salty.  I control the heat with a bit of hot pepper oil or sauce.

Finally, I adjust the noodle to meat quantities since we like a bit more meat than the recipe calls for.  I find about 6 oz of noodles per pound of port about right.

Leftovers for lunch today.  Yum.

Dinner: Mapo Tofu

Mapo Tofu for dinner tonight.  Here's the recipe I work from.  I use 1lb ground pork since I like more meat.  I also use extra firm tofu as I prefer the texture and fry it a bit separately to put a bit of brown and flavor on it.  Other than that I generally follow the recipe.
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Not my usual recipe.  Here's the right one.  The other, while flavorful, is overly salty and doesn't have peas which we enjoy.

Dinner: Beef Stroganoff

Beef Stroganoff is actually a family of dishes.  I used this one.  Very nice.  Tomorrow we'll have catfish again and then Tuesday Mapo Tofu.

Dinner: Cajun catfish and corn bread

Just a quick note on tonight's dinner.  I was by the grocer and fish monger Friday and he had some very nice catfish, not the fresh water fish that is known locally as a horn pout.  At any case I'd made some Cajun spice and am rather found of Cajun catfish.  So tonight it's Cajun catfish and corn bread made with some of the stone ground corn meal we got from the Wayside mill today.  Very nice.  I've fish and corn bread left over so breakfast will be fish and eggs, yum, but you've got to understand it.  The rest will be dinner in the next couple of days.

Bike ride Westford and Chelmsford

BB and I went for a bit of a bike ride on this bright warm fall day.  We did most of the Bruce Freedom Rail Trail.  I'd walked a bit of this earlier while geocaching and it is very nice with almost no grades since it's an old rail bed and wonderful scenery.  We only had about an hour to ride so we didn't have time to do the entire trail but did manage a bit over 8 miles.

No photos cuz while I remembered to bring my camera, I foolishly left it's memory card in my computer!  Not the dumbest thing I've ever done but frustrating as I was going to take some photos of the old canal lock and dam in Chelmsford.

To complete the confusion my GPS decided to loose itself along the way so I had to doctor the track to make the usual map.

Route and profile

I forgot to not last night's dinner, panko wasabi crusted telapia with coconut rice and flash fried spinach.  The recipe is for tuna, VERY GOOD, but will work with a variety of fishes.

Tonight is leftover chicken marsala.  We'll start with some our-devours since John and Marie are coming by for a drink before dinner to celebrate their winning second place in a national case study competition.  We'll have a bit of champagne.  I've got some nice oil cured olives and aged cheese that I need to use and I'll probably make a fish paste out a bit of the leftover telapia.

Geocaching - Boston Red Sox & Oogity Boogity

Went out geocaching to loosen up my legs after yesterday's bike abuse.  Found

2009 Boston Red Sox Roster Series - Tim Wakefield

Oogity Boogity Buggity Cache

It was a lovely cool fall day for a walk in the woods.  This was my first time in this area.  It's really very lovely. 

It's a short walk from good parking into Red Sox.  The cache is in good order.  I took a Red Sox medallion for my rabid fan neighbor.  Left a couple of rings and the Which Way to Maine TB I recently discovered.  TFTC.

I bushwacked a bit through open woodland to catch a trail to Oogity.  Easy kid friendly walk past some wetlands.  Found the cache without issue.  It's generally in good order but just a bit damp.  Unfortunately I didn't have any new bags to seal up the log.  TFTC.  TNLN.

These two caches would make a great family outing.  Here's my path and profile.

As usual here are the photos I took, my path and profile.

Cooking and new years party

Spent the day cooking the rest of the meal.  Made lamb stuffed with spinach and goat cheese, cod with black olive tapanade, roasted new potatoes, asparagus with hollandaise, stuffed mushrooms, brie stuffed puff pastry, and artichoke dip.  It took the entire day but I did manage to get in a bit of rest in the afternoon.

Dinner was at 8PM but people came late (I really should know to plan for 20 minutes for such events).  John and Marie showed up a couple of minutes before Bob and Burnedette and Chilie and Joyce.  Mark and Miriam and Josh were late but came just as we were finishing ordurves.  We had a wonderful meal and people really seamed to enjoy the various dishes.  Chilie was a big help in matching wines and dishes.  We greated the new years and people left about 2am.  It was close to 3am before BB and I got to bed.

I'd wanted to sleep in but by 7:30 both BB and I were wide awake.  Mark, Miriam, and Josh had stayed over.  I made a couple of stratas for breakfast.  We ate (I'll not want food for some time) and talked.  They left about 2PM. 

BB and I took our time cleaning up since we've another two days to get the house back together.  I was amazed at the glassware, dishes, etc. that we used.  Still it was a good time.

Start cooking

Got off to a quick start this mourning to make the soup and bread for tomorrow's dinner. 

Had a bit of a misadventure when the coffee pot broke!  I noticed it after 10 cups of coffee spilled onto the counter, floor and along the way ran into several drawers!  It took a bit to clean up and, of course, I'll need to buy another French Press or find a replacement glass caref (unlikely).  It's not a big issue since I think I can get one in Sudbury and I've got to go out later to get fish and meat.

I'd given some thought to going caching later today.  Just now  it's about 10°F outside and after yesterday I'm less than wildly enthuiastic.  But the weather is suppose to warm up around noon so I'll check then.

Getting ready for New Years dinner

I ran errands today to get the things we'll need for the New Years party - wine glasses, blender, cooking utensils, steak knives, and some graber plates.  I'm not sure about the grabber plates but we'll see what BB thinks.  While I was out a checked the parking for the beyond the stream cache.  It looks good so I'll probably try to go there tomorrow.

Spent the rest of the day reading.

BB was lukewarm to the purchases.  We had a bit of a row.  I think she may just have been tired.

Stimulus check showed.  I'll deposit it ASAP.

Dinner was left over beef roast and roasted vegtables.

Mike is not feeling well.