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Tomos Watkin's Cwrw Braf - The Hurns Brewing Co.
Displayed for educational use only; do not reuse.
Ratings: 25 | Reviews: 18 | Display Reviews Only:
Reviews by Foxman:
New Jersey
3.5/5 rDev -3.6%
It pours a clear iced tea golden amber. A thin finger of loose white head skips away soon to mere vestiges. Dollops of lacing scoop the inside of the glass.
In the aroma, toasted malt implies caramel and dried fruit. A slight soy tang fades into a distant floral flutter.
Upon tasting, the malt is flat and blunt with caramel, toffee, and biscuit, but no sense of sugar. A thin spread of yeast and dough don't quite inspire, but they do represent. There's no real residual grain presence, and it's only in the finish that the hops assert enough to give off a very general but crisp, lingering bitterness. There's not much going on, but there's a little something there.
Light bodied, it really flies across the palate but a little patience reveals a crisp, clean note.
It's a on trick pony that isn't really all that tricky. Still, as the session beer it purports itself to be, it does pretty well. In fact, its simplicity makes it drinkable and in no way taxing. Now I can put this on the tried list. It doesn't make it to the do-over list, but no regrets.
02-17-2009 19:00:10 | More by Foxman
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North Carolina
3.75/5 rDev +3.3%
I believe this is only the second Welsh beer I have had to date.Poured into a nonic a lighter copper color with a 1/2 finger white head that if it had not been gone so fast would have had a higher appearance rating.Fresh green apple in the nose at first,it really was fresh,a bit of iron and biscuit malt as well.Pretty thin in the mouth,to me it took away a little from the flavors,some of that green apple tartness and toasted biscuit with almost a sherry vinegar flavor in the finish.Not a bad sociable pint,its thin but its "nice".
04-26-2009 21:39:52 | More by oberon
New Jersey
3.25/5 rDev -10.5%
A: Poured a clear, cranberry-orange with a sudsy, dirty tan head that quickly faded to a sparse, patchy layering. Visible carbonation was light.
S: soft making you work to pick up its light scents of sour caramel and fresh raisins.
T: The flavor was sharp in nature, and acidic with sour oranges, sour caramel malting, and fresh raisins. There is a smooth sour fruitiness (apples) and dry orange peels detected as well. The bitterness is light and semi-sweet with nectar hints while the finish displays light honey toasted caramel, light dry floral notes and a lingering sour fruitiness.
M: light, oily with a sour fruitiness coming through with a light carbonation factor.
D: Labeled as a session bitter at only 4.2%abv was decent and easy enough to drink by style, just really didn't grab my attention or make me want to.
05-25-2008 18:01:16 | More by beerthulhu
3.5/5 rDev -3.6%
05-29-2012 13:12:16 | More by LJWalker
New York
3.83/5 rDev +5.5%
A: The beer poured hazy amber in color with a thin head that quickly faded into lacy patterns of bubbles. Only a very light amount of carbonation is visible from the rising bubbles.
S: The smell is rather sweet and has aromas of caramel malts, dark fruits and toffee in the nose.
T: The taste is very similar to the smell and also has a mild amount of malty sweetness and lots of fruity flavors. Not much bitterness from the hops is perceptible.
M: It feels light-bodied on the palate and has a slight amount of carbonation.
D: This beer goes down smoothly and is very sessionable, particularly given its low alcohol content.
08-10-2010 01:42:48 | More by metter98
4.05/5 rDev +11.6%
pours a slightly hazy dark amber color with a one finger head that dissipates into a small lacing. looks great.
smells of strong malt with subtle hints of caramel....some over ripened fruit scents there as well. interesting.
tastes good. surprisingly strong maltiness, especially for a "Session Bitter" (the label on the bottle calls it this). Not too bitter at all-- the hops provide a nice perfect balance for a session beer. The slightly bitter hops is followed by a slightly dry aftertaste. Wow. Leave it to the Welsh to brew such a well balanced ale.
mouthfeel is nice and smooth, but nothing to write home about.
drinkability is great. i could have quite a few of these (hence the name SESSION bitter)
overall- another fantastic ale by a UK brewery. I think this is my first Welsh ale-- and I'm loving it. I've been trying to find Brain's for the longest time, but this satisfied me. I love English ales, and this one is yet another one to try.
04-29-2009 20:41:04 | More by tzieser
3.9/5 rDev +7.4%
Single bottle (no date) poured into a Tulip stout glass.
Appearance: Hazy orange to tarnished copper on the table, some red in there when held up to the light. Poured a off-white 1/4" head, but this died down rather quickly to a ring around the glass and a thin skin of foam in the middle. Delicate strands of lacing noted. I noticed after pouring that there was sediment in the bottle, so I wonder what I would have gotten on a gentle pour.
Smell: Some toffee and mild fruit/apple notes. A classic English-style ale smell.
Taste: Toffee again, with some fruity flavors (apple and cider-like, but not a tart apple) moving into a burnt toffee and very mild bitter finish. The bitter finish is again what one would expect from a English bitter, but it is muted due to the heavier malt profile here. That malt profile is still balanced - it's never cloying in my opinion.
Mouthfeel: A little fizzy on the tongue which gets in the way of everything else. And perhaps I could say it is more carbonated than what I would expect in a typical English ale. Otherwise the mouthfeel is nothing special.
Drinkability: A very solid ale - went very well with a meal (mustard pork chops and potatoes) and I could see this going well with a lot of foods. Easy to drink and while I keep comparing it to English-style ales, I have to remember it is Welsh and some of the differences may lie there, such as the carbonation. I rather like this one and wonder what it would be like fresh out of a cask.
01-22-2011 23:01:47 | More by damndirtyape
New Jersey
2.9/5 rDev -20.1%
Aromas of lightly toasted and biscuity malt with caramel and dried fruit.
The taste is kind of a letdown to be honest; caramel, toffee and biscuity maltiness. There are underlying notes of doughy yeast with an small finish of undecipherable hop bitterness. Mouthfeel is extremely light bodied, it really flies across the palate but a little patience reveals a crisp, clean note.
Overall this beer is forgettable like so many other lower end UK breweries' offerings. I am officially done buying/supporting any non-mass produced UK ales. From now on it's Sam Smith or Fullers quality UK brews only because they are cheaper and always better than these smaller less-mass-produced ales.
12-03-2010 23:58:22 | More by claspada
United Kingdom (England)
3.5/5 rDev -3.6%
11-01-2013 16:53:11 | More by EmperorBevis
New Hampshire
3.35/5 rDev -7.7%
Pours a three finger cream head that fades slowly, leaving a good lace. Clear amber color. Medium carbonation and medium bodied. Sweet malty nose. Flavor has hints of caramel, some bitterness, good session beer. $4.45 for a 500ml bottle from Colonial Spirits Acton, Ma.
04-09-2009 22:53:38 | More by jdhilt
4/5 rDev +10.2%
12-06-2011 13:49:32 | More by ROGUE16
United Kingdom (England)
3.5/5 rDev -3.6%
06-02-2014 21:36:34 | More by endless1408
3.95/5 rDev +8.8%
With a name like Lovely Ale (as the bottle notes), it's hard to pass this one up. Also, the back label denotes this as a bitter, not an EPA
The pour is quite gorgeous, copper-amber in color with a dense white head with good retention and lacing. Attractive stuff, this. On the nose, this is almost as good, with toffee, caramel and a touch of nougat. Hops aren't noticeable, and the rich, deep, nutty malt backbone is refreshing. Fruity as well, with a slight dried fruit and tutti fruiti character. On the palate, this is beautifully balanced, with flavors of toffee, caramel, a little butterscotch, and a touch of earthy, hoppy bitterness. Surprisingly full in body (for a 4.2% beer), with carbonation that's a touch higher than it need be. The finish is dry, with a little bit of bitterness and unfortunately, a little watery. I'm not complaining, though, this is delightfully refreshing, and I will gladly drink this again.
09-26-2009 23:27:40 | More by DefenCorps
South Carolina
3.2/5 rDev -11.8%
Well well! A Welsh ale! Unpronounceable of course, but what was I expecting, right? This is likely my first uwkrcbrar from Wales - that's Welsh for beer, by the way.
Welsh, what we has 'ere is a hazy, well carbonated amber brew, with a finger tall head that falls to just cover the surface of this self-described "Session bitter". Good retention. Smells of light caramel malt, supple hops and a surprising amount of fruity esters. Weird...
Tastes like a... well, I dunno... too flavorful and fruity to really be a Mild, not hopped enough and wrong malt bill / yeast / everything for an English Pale... I'd put it as some sort of "Welsh hybrid"; closer to a fruity Amber ale than anything else... light caramel and roast mingles with an odd sourness and a vague fruit flavor, some buttery notes and a noble hop or two. It's thin and highly carbonated, goes down easy 'nuff but leaves an unwonderful sour malt thing behind, slightly reminiscent of a sour mash whiskey. So yes, it's weird. And Welsh.
I... I guess I would drink it again... Cwrw Braf isn't bad, it isn't really *good*... it has character, but to what end? I dunno... much like Wales itself and that cougar from the bar with only one eye, this is a total mystery. I guess you just have to try it and see? The Cwrw Braf, I mean.
12-17-2009 05:10:19 | More by kkipple
New York
3.78/5 rDev +4.1%
Bright chocolate-tinged amber with creamy beige head that crusts.
Orange, cherry brack and a bit of must on the nose.
Red candy fruit and orange Fanta hops
Cherry sweet ending and a faint orange linger.
Light, crisp, bright.
Two note, but they're good notes, yet thin with no sustain. More a light amber than a pale ale. Not special, but quite moreish. A summer quaffer.
06-30-2013 16:57:27 | More by StJamesGate
2.9/5 rDev -20.1%
As go the numbers, so go the comments: this was an average beer, neither good or bad. Nice amber color with a reasonably bubbly head; there were a few notes of malt and citrus in the aroma but even a good snort couldn't pull much more from the head. On the whole it was a bit flat both in the body and the flavor. I know that imported stuff can become diminished in the trip overseas, but for your American dollars you can definitely do better in the UK-ale department.
09-03-2010 20:48:57 | More by gfreed
North Carolina
3.9/5 rDev +7.4%
Appearance: Pours a hazy light amber color with a rocky head; quite a few splashes of lace
Smell: Modest aromatics, but hints of caramel and earthy minerals
Taste: Opens with an earthy malty character that builds in mineral flavors by mid-palate and grows increasingly bitter; a bit of lemony fruit, as well; after the swallow, the flavor profile remains the same through the finish, although there is a hint of toffee at the end
Mouthfeel: Medium body with moderate carbonation
Drinkability: Very English in character (altough with less of a hop bill than the typical English Pale Ale); a very nice session ale
08-03-2008 22:39:39 | More by brentk56
New York
3.68/5 rDev +1.4%
Pours a very light amber, fading to straw at the bottom of my glass. Big fluffy head. Smells really earthy and malty, plenty of caramel, toffee and biscuit. Flavors mimick the nose with a chocolatey tone providing the backbone for the toast and toffee at the forefront. A bit of a fruity twang imparted by the yeast plays along and a rising though gentle hop bitterness pipes up on the end. Slightly mineral heavy water, as expected. Tastes like what light hops are in here have faded a bit - a slightly old bottle, but no major marks off. Lightly carbonated and thin bodied, slightly creamy.
Not sure if this falls under English Bitter or English Pale myself. Regardless, a quite drinkable sessioner and just what I was craving - not exceptional but solid.
10-28-2008 22:09:31 | More by grandq
3.68/5 rDev +1.4%
Nice. First American review. Pours a clear amber with a small creme head that falls fairly soon, but not too quickly. Nose is of milder toasted grains. Flavor is a bit earthy with a bitter tone, but nothing real crazy. Feel has a bite on the carbonation and the liquid is smooth. This is definitely easy to drink. I wouldn't say it's blowing my mind here, but it's decent. Might be interesting on cask.
03-18-2008 15:55:46 | More by RblWthACoz
United Kingdom (England)
4/5 rDev +10.2%
03-17-2013 16:06:57 | More by Viceroy
4/5 rDev +10.2%
12-08-2013 03:30:20 | More by BillRoth
United Kingdom (Wales)
3.5/5 rDev -3.6%
02-27-2012 21:56:11 | More by CwrwAmByth
3.98/5 rDev +9.6%
Pours from a 16.9oz bottle into an imperial pint glass. Slightly cloudy and hazy bronze color with a small white, bubbly head.
Aroma is slightly fruity with some earthy tones. Caramel, biscuity and bready.
Solid flavor. More breadiness and caramel with some toasty and slightly straw-like. Really solid flavor. Not much in the way of hops, flavor or aroma, but pretty solid otherwise.
A nice beer. Very sessionable and quite enjoyable. Not sure of its availability, seeing as its from Wales, but certainly worth the under $5 price tag.
08-13-2009 19:49:37 | More by SaCkErZ9
3.33/5 rDev -8.3%
The aroma is watery and slightly toasted with diacetyl and phenol elements. here is also grassy hops. The appearance is orange gold with an average head for the style. The flavor is like the aroma. The palate is thin. Overall this is decent but has an unpleasant cardboard finish.
04-10-2009 05:40:32 | More by nick76
3.75/5 rDev +3.3%
Purchased a 16.9 oz bottle of this one from local beer store.
Pours a reddish to dark amber color with a nice half inch white head. Also a bit hazy and quite opaque.
Smell is pretty malty with a bit of citrus. Finishes with a bit of toffee and caramel. A nice, full aroma.
Taste begins with malt and biscuity presence, followed by a bit of toffee. Fruity presence--sweet and a bit tart--is at the back of the swallow. There is also a hint of bitterness, but not overwhelming.
Mouthfeel is pretty full with a bit of carbonation and mild hop sting.
Overall, this is a pleasant and very sessionable beer. Low (4.2%) abv and nice flavor make it quite possible to enjoy several in one sitting.
04-07-2010 23:34:59 | More by macpapi
Tomos Watkin's Cwrw Braf from The Hurns Brewing Co.
83 out of 100 based on 25 ratings.


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Home » News » Public Safety
GPS puts driver on snowmobile trail
That was the navigational nightmare for one motorist who became lost while trying to find a house in Epping last weekend, but instead found himself on a snowmobile trail that leads to the Lamprey River.
"He was pretty close to the river and it was pretty damp, so his passenger-side tire was taking on a little bit of water," said Officer Matthew Blonigen, who responded to the late-night call for help.
The sticky situation happened about 1 a.m. on Feb. 17 when the driver, from Massachusetts, was trying to find a place several streets away but followed the GPS into Camp Hedding, an old Methodist campground with seasonal and year-round homes tucked away in the woods under towering pine trees.
Blonigen said the GPS took the driver down a road that ends and becomes a snowmobile trail. The driver thought it most likely continued, so he drove on, passing a yellow pole indicating that it was a trail.
"He apparently didn't pay attention to that," Blonigen said, "and it definitely didn't look like a road people would drive on."
The driver had no idea that he was nearing the Lamprey River until the ground became wet - and his Audi got stuck.
"He wasn't in the river by any means, but he was close," Blonigen said.
Realizing he was in trouble, the driver decided it was time to call 911. It wasn't long before police arrived and located the vehicle about 100 yards past the snowmobile trail.
A tow truck was then called.
The driver wasn't shaken by his GPS goof up, but he wasn't very happy either.
"He was kind of upset that his car was stuck," Blonigen said.
On the bright side, this driver had better luck than a man in Alaska last year who followed his GPS after driving off a ferry and took a turn down a boat launch and landed in a harbor.
A similar incident happened to a woman in Washington state in 2011 when she mistook a boat ramp for a road while using a GPS in a rental car. She ended up in water, too.
This isn't Blonigen's first call for a motorist who was counting on his small navigational device operated by satellites.
He recalled a time in recent years when a driver had failed to update his GPS maps and didn't realize that a bridge was out on North River Road. The GPS still showed a bridge, and by the time the driver realized the bridge was gone, it was too late. Blonigen said the driver went off the road.
Incidents of drivers calling police after their GPS had led them astray are rare, but they have happened, local police said.
Hampstead police Lt. John Frazier said his department has had some motorists call to "get their bearing straight" after becoming lost or confused while following their GPS, but so far no one has ended up in water.
Frazier stressed the importance of having a "working sense of direction" when using a GPS.
"Some degree of common sense does exist, but people trying to get to the Seacoast from points south should know driving west won't get you there," he said.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Weekly Roundup - May 4, 2012
Mary Mac from Country Giant 94.7—a radio station in Cookeville, Tenn.—poses here with a billboard celebrating her No. 10 showing on CW's annual Top 10 Hottest Bachelorettes list.
photo courtesy GPM Now
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Ace and Penny are going to have a little brother or sister.
Accepts the ALS charity challenge from her friend Kenny Rogers.
Country and R&B collide Sept. 26 on a new installment of CMT favorite.
Alan Jackson: 25 Years of Keepin' It Country is open beginning Aug. 29
New solo collection was produced by Angaleena and her husband, Jordan Powell.
Star-packed collection hits stores Sept. 7.


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Updated Nov 1, 2012 - 11:31 am
Rob Hunter dresses as 'Major League' character
By Bruce St. James and Pamela Hughes
Originally published: Oct 31, 2012 - 2:55 pm
Originally published: Oct 31, 2012 - 2:55 pm
We appreciate a good costume here at KTAR.com and Rob Hunter brought a classic over the weekend.
We're not sure if he needs the glasses or not, but Rob Hunter as Rick Vaughn (Major League) hopefully will stick with us rather than heading for the big leagues.
Bruce St. James and Pamela Hughes, Mon-Fri., 9a-12p on 92.3 KTAR
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Choiseul – first climate change town to move in bid to beat tsunamis
Fear of tsunamis and the threat of rising sea levels has made a provincial capital in the Solomon Islands decide to relocate its entire population – the first time this has happened on this scale in the Pacific. Asia-Pacific Journalism reports on the challenges of relocating.
Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Elesha Edmonds
Residents of a provincial capital in the Solomon Islands have to always keep their eyes on the tide as they live in fear of being flooded by the ocean.
Choiseul, a township on Taro Island, which is the provincial capital of Choiseul Province, is home to about 1000 people and sits less than two metres above sea level, making the island vulnerable to storm surges and tsunamis.
It has reached the point that authorities have decided relocation is the only long-term solution to combat the existing and future risks of climate change. Read more »


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Dear all,
Is it okay to say "John and I are friends for three years"?
I know "John and I have been friends..." is correct, but I'd like to know if the sentence above can be acceptable.
Thank you!


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Cheil UK boosts creative with Cargill and Perkins
By Ian Darby, campaignlive.co.uk, Thursday, 04 April 2013 08:28AM
Cheil UK has appointed Duncan Cargill, the former Fallon creative, as creative director and Emma Perkins, from Saatchi X, as its first shopper marketing creative director.
Cargill, previously creative director at Fallon, will oversee creative direction within the experiential team at Cheil UK. Perkins, the former executive creative director of Saatchi X in London, will join Cheil's established shopper marketing team.
Both will report to Logan Wilmont, the executive creative director of Cheil UK.
Prior to Fallon, Cargill was the creative director at The Hospital Club and also worked at General Assembly and Channel 4.
At Cheil, Perkins will be reunited with Simon Hathaway, her former Saatchi X colleague who is now president of shopper marketing and retail operations. She will work alongside James Dotchin, the retail creative director.
Cheil UK, which has 200 staff based in King's Cross, focuses on handling the Samsung Electronics business.
However, it is also looking to build its client list beyond Samsung.
Wilmont said: "Both appointments are in line with our ambition to grow by bringing the best talent in the sector to work on our clients' businesses."Follow @Darbs73
This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk
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Sexy and wild Japanese beauty Anna Anjo likes feeling this guy sliding his hands all over her body, teasing her and making her horny to feel his large dick penetrating her wet pussy in one naughty hardcore action scene. She is one horny cock chasing chick!
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Following product observation and quality assurance measures, Katadyn Products Inc. announced a voluntary recall of the Optimus Nova and Optimus Nova+ Multifuel Expedition Stoves: A fine edge left over from tooling of the quick-action coupling and of the ON/OFF fuel supply valve of the pump may cause the O-rings to wear prematurely. Also, the O-rings used in the fuel hose and in the ON/OFF valve on some stoves can expand in certain kinds of fuel. Some Nova stoves of the latest production lots may have fuel hoses which are not completely crimped and could get detached. These failures can cause fuel leakage and thus pose a fire hazard to consumers.
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The following products are affected by the recall:
The recalled stoves and pumps were sold at outdoor and sporting goods retailers or on the internet between January 2009 and September 2010.
For more information please contact:
Katadyn Products Inc.
Gear News and Outdoor Industry News at UKC and UKH presents climbing, walking and mountaineering equipment and stories that will be of interest to UKClimbing.com's readers. They are not gear reviews and are provided by companies that advertise with UKClimbing Limited. Please feel free to comment about the stories and products on the associated thread.


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TweakTown NewsRefine News by Category:
Connectivity & Communications Posts - Page 25
Sumbeamtech gets in on USB 3.0 product rush
Getting in on the initial stages of USB 3.0 market growth, Sumbeamtech has just unveiled three USB 3.0 products including the USB3.0 Airbox, USB3.0 HDDPAL and and SuperSpeed USB3.0 expansion card.
Beginning with the USB3.0 Airbox, this is an external HDD enclosure constructed out of aluminum and supports 3.5-inch SATA HDDs up to 2TB.
It also includes an 80mm blue-LED fan working at 1600RPM to assist in keeping your drive cool.
Sunbeamtech's new HDDPAL is a convenient HDD/SSD docking station for both 2.5 and 3.5-inch sized drives. The unit allows for hot plug and play use and measures 132 x 94 x 69 mm.
Last up is the SuperSpeed USB3.0 expansion card which is not unlike other USB 3.0 PCI-E x1 cards we've seen pop up in the market already.
No word on availability or pricing for these USB 3.0 based products as yet.
Continue reading 'Sumbeamtech gets in on USB 3.0 product rush' (full post)
Scosche debuts solBAT II for charging USB devices
Most technology fans have been out and about with their mobile phone or MP3 player and started to run out of power. When this happens, you can either head to the nearest AC outlet to recharge or just stop using your device.
Scosche has announced a new solar powered battery charger called the solBAT II that will charge any device that can get power via USB using the power of the sun. The battery inside the charger is a 1500mAh unit with a 5V output.
The battery will work with Blackberrys, iPhones, and iPods along with numerous other devices. It ships with a windshield mount and a clip to hang the charger on a bag. The solBAT II will sell for $29.99.
Continue reading 'Scosche debuts solBAT II for charging USB devices' (full post)
3D portion of HDMI 1.4 spec available
We have been able to get some 3D games on our PCs for a while now thanks to stereoscopic drivers that were a bit hit and miss and the NVIDIA 3D Vision glasses. 3D content is coming to the home theater and computers in a big way this year and the HDMI Licensing LLC has announced that the 3D portion of HDMI 1.4 is now available.
The 3D section of the specification can be downloaded now and gives the public and corporations access to the spec that don't have a HDMI Adopter Agreement in place. Once the full 1.4a HDMI spec is finished it will all be released along with an update to the 3D portion.
This is the next step towards getting the new HDMI spec out and devices coming to market that support 3D. The specification can be downloaded now from the HDMI.org website.
Continue reading '3D portion of HDMI 1.4 spec available' (full post)
Atlona offers DVI to mini DisplayPort converter
Many computer users want to be able to use a second monitor with their system to get more screen space. Some users also want to be able to connect additional sources to their existing screens as well. Atlona has announced a new converter that changes a dual link DVI to a mini DisplayPort.
The device is model AT-DP400 and while it is compatible with Mac and PCs, the device is specifically designed for the 27" iMac. When used with the iMac the converter supports resolutions up to 2560 x 1440. On PC systems, it supports up to 2560 x 1600.
The device will allow 1080p full HD resolution and gets all the power it needs from a USB port. The converter is HDCP compatible for Blu-ray playback and can be used to connect a PS3 or Xbox to the 27" iMac at 720p resolution. The converter will ship in March for $199 and can be pre-ordered now.
Continue reading 'Atlona offers DVI to mini DisplayPort converter' (full post)
Genesys Logic denies sampling USB 3.0 controllers for Apple
One would think it's inevitable Apple will be implementing USB 3.0 into upcoming generations of its MBPs or Mac Pros, but a report from the folks at Digitimes states that while Genesys Logic has begun sampling USB 3.0 device controllers for a client of which sources are claiming to be Apple, Genesys has denied this claim.
So, we're left wondering exactly what's going on, but given how fast Apple has adopted new technologies in the past (when thinking back to USB, Firewire/800 and more recently DisplayPort), one would think it safe to assume USB 3.0 is well and truly on the horizon.
Continue reading 'Genesys Logic denies sampling USB 3.0 controllers for Apple' (full post)
ECS brings USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps PCI x1 controllers to market
Moving promptly with the times, ECS has just introduced both USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps PCI-E x1 expansion cards to market.
The U3N2 USB 3.0 expansion card uses NEC's controller chip to deliver up to 5Gbps transfer rates to supporting USB 3.0 devices. It provides two ports and is of course backward compatible with USB 2.0 devices.
The S6M2 makes use of Marvell's 6Gbps controller and provides both an internal SATA 3.0 port as well as an eSATA 3.0 port for external connectivity.
Full details can be found within the press release here folks.
Continue reading 'ECS brings USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps PCI x1 controllers to market' (full post)
Silex unveils first USB-to-Gigabit network adapter
Sharing peripherals in an office or a home with many computers across a network can be a challenge. However, sharing things like printers and external hard drives can save lots of money compared to buying multiple devices.
Silex Technology has unveiled a new way to share up to 15 USB devices across a network using a Gigabit connection. The Silex adapter is called the SX-3000GB. The device has two USB ports and a single 10/100/1000 Ethernet port to connect to a wired or wireless network.
You have to use a USB hub to share all 15 devices the adapter can support. The two USB ports built-in have a combined power output of one amp. The adapter works on Windows and Mac systems and is available now for $99.
Continue reading 'Silex unveils first USB-to-Gigabit network adapter' (full post)
VESA readies up DisplayPort 1.2 with much fatter bandwidth
VESA revealed a new spec for its DisplayPort interface at CES which it simply calls DisplayPort 1.2.
With the bandwidth being doubled to 21.8 Gbit/s (more than twice that of the current HDMI 1.4 standard), this allows DisplayPort 1.2 to handle 3D-signals, Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD audiostreams and also USB 2.0 and network data with speeds of up to 720 Mbit/s.
Further to that is the ability to take on higher resolutions (up to 3840 x 2400 pixels) with superior color depths and increased refresh rates (2560 x 1600 pixels on a 120 Hz 3D-screen).
It's also worth noting that the new standard is backward compatible with the first DisplayPort spec so there won't be a need for new cables or connectors.
Continue reading 'VESA readies up DisplayPort 1.2 with much fatter bandwidth' (full post)
Seagate Shows USB 3.0 BlackArmor PS110
CES 2010 - Seagate had an updated version of the BlackArmor portable HDD here at CES. The new model uses USB 3.0 but is just as small as the original.
This was the first look we had at the new mini USB 3.0 connector.
The receiving end of the plug looks like this. The pins are sideways on the mini and much smaller than the full size USB 3.0 plug.
The performance of the Seagate BlackArmor with USB 3.0 was actually better than the build in HDD. Here we see the BA USB 3.0 on the left, the onboard HDD in the center and a BA USB 2.0 on the right.
Continue reading 'Seagate Shows USB 3.0 BlackArmor PS110' (full post)
Thermaltake demonstrates USB 3.0 vs. USB 2.0 with BlacX caddy
CES 2010 - Yesterday we had the chance to stop by the Thermaltake suite where the company was showing off a full range of its new products including cases, power supplies, coolers and so on.
What stood out for us what the live demo of its upcoming BlacX USB 3.0 external hard drive caddy.
Below on video we get a look at the difference between the two standards and a no nonsense introduction from Thermaltake.
We look forward to testing the device soon when it comes out!
Continue reading 'Thermaltake demonstrates USB 3.0 vs. USB 2.0 with BlacX caddy' (full post)


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Today's weather forecast: Dreamy
Zagat has released their 2014 picks for America's Top Restaurants. The guide grows each year. This year, it covers 1,478 eateries in 36 major cities, including, of course, Los Angeles.
The survey completed by 224,000 diners picked our own Asanebo, Sushi Zo, Hamasaku, Mélisse, and Matsuhisa as Los Angeles's best. Along with the survey, Zagat will be releasing this year's dining trends in Los Angeles. Unsurprisingly, 76% of L.A. diners avoid restaurants that are too loud. We're among that majority.
Congratulations to all of the winners!
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Talk Wrestling Online: Forum
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Leicester Championship Wrestling: Roses presents Mayday - Saturday 10th May 2014
On 10th May 2014, LCW Roses will host their third show of the year Mayday at Brockington College in Leicester. The show will see rivalries continue, potentially see new alliances formed but will most certainly see a card full of talented womens wrestlers. Doors 2:30pm / Starts 3:00pm / Finish: 5:00pm. The address for the show is Brockington College, Blaby Road, Enderby, Leicester, LE19 4AQ also note This show is FAMILY FRIENDLY!
The main event of the show will see the First Lady of Lego and the Queen of Crazy, Addy Starr return to LCW Roses to take on Rhia O'Reilly in a rematch from the debut show, Roses Rumble.
The second match that was announced sees Kay Lee Ray squaring up to Viper.
After her debut at the previous show Nixon will be taking on the inaugrual winner of the Roses Rumble, Nikki Storm.
We will also see a four way elimination match as "Princess" Nadia Sapphire, Jenna, Felony and Kirsty Love will all be looking to pick up the win at Mayday.
The 5th match that has been announced, "The Amazon" Ayesha Ray will be taking on "The Diva" Faith Lehaine.
With these five matches announced and the names of Kasey Owens, Leah Owens, Shauna Shay & Violet Vendetta scheduled to appear much can be speculated about the next match announcement. Tickets for the show are available at www.lcwrestling.co.uk
(Notice: I am not the promoter of this show, just a friend of the promoter plugging the show)
- Join Date
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And as speculation came the final match has been announced as the team of Shauna Shay & Violet Vendetta who teamed together at the previous show will be squaring up against the team from Belfast, Northern Ireland, The Owens Twins, Leah & Kasey Owens.
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"Change an item in the navigation? Sure I can do that in 15 minutes."
So I am trying to update the navigation on a site that I inherited only to find out that the previous programmer was a college student and was using this site as a project of some sort. Needless to say there are zero comments and the code calls function after function and I just can't follow the logic.
I am looking for a roundabout way to update the navigation. I tried using Dreamweaver to search through all of the files in the site and look for any files that contain the name of the page or the url (hoping to find some sort of included file). There was none. I did file text files that control the main navigation but none for the subnavigation.
There is no database.
If it helps here is the site. http://bit.ly/jbs639
And if you want to look at the interesting text file that is parsed to create the main navigation you can find it here: http://bit.ly/m3erna


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In what's quickly become an anticipated annual tradition, Outskirts Press is once again reaching out to the online community for contributions to its annual Fandemonium anthology, slated for publication in early summer. The Denver-based self-publishing company is accepting submissions to Fandemonium Volume 4 now through April 30.
The annual Fandemonium compilation includes stories, poetry and other short-form literary works submitted by fans of the Outskirts Press Facebook page. For three years now, Fandemonium has brought Outskirts Press Facebook members together to experience the joy of publishing first-hand, while benefiting a great cause along the way. Proceeds from the sale of the 2014 Fandemonium collection will be donated to the American Red Cross on behalf of Outskirts Press and its Facebook fans.
Press Information:Outskirts Press10940 S Parker Rd-515
Parker, CO 80134Contact Person:Kelly SchuknechtPhone: 888-672-6657email: emailWeb: www.outskirtspress.com


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Queens Park Rangers have announced that they have signed Esteban Granero from Real Madrid, subject to a medical.
The club tweeted on their official account that "It's not usually QPR policy to comment on potential new signings prior to the deals being complete" but that the early announcement was "at the request of Real Madrid and to keep QPR fans in the know."
The midfielder had come through the youth ranks at Real Madrid and had been a squad player for a number of years, and was sold to Getafe but quickly brought back to the Bernabeu in 2009 after the Madrid club exercised their buy-back option. Now, however, Los Merengues appear to have finally decided that it is time for the 25-year-old, who can play anywhere across the midfield, to move on.
Granero has been selected for the Spanish team at all youth levels, but is yet to receive a full international cap for his country.


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Articles in Baking
Sometimes hand-me down family recipes need a little nudge to make them suit today's tastes. In the case of my grandma's icebox cake, she traditionally labored over creating homemade pound cake and then paired it with homemade chocolate mousse-like pudding. My mom updated it for her day by using Jell-O pudding instead. It was tasty enough to be my favorite dessert as a 6-year-old, but as an adult, I want something more. More chocolate, to be specific.
More from Zester Daily:
» Moist, light, versatile chocolate cake
So I followed a big sister's suggestion and combined the best of these family ideas. I added all the extra-dark chocolate I could find to the pudding as it cooked. Valrhona, Scharffen Berger, Callebaut, Guittard, Ghirardelli — pick your poison. And it didn't seem to matter how much I threw in, so I took advice from my 8-year-old grandnephew, who is fond of promoting "add as much chocolate as you want" to almost any dessert recipe, and included three full bars of Valhrona, 1½ boxes of Scharffen Berger and a partial bag of Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips. And always on the lookout for simple and fast, I found that a three-loaf package of store-bought pound cake works just as well as homemade when chocolate is the star of the dessert.
With all that input — and all that chocolate — this cake might just live on to be a five-generation heirloom. I think Grandma would be proud.
- 3 store-bought pound cakes
- 18 ounces or more of dark chocolate (bars, bits or chips)
- 2 large (5-ounce) boxes of Jell-O Cook and Serve Chocolate Pudding
- 6 cups whole milk
- 2 cups whipped cream
- Cut pound cakes into ½ inch slices. Each cake should supply enough slices to fit in a single layer in a 9 x 13 baking pan.
- Break up chunks of dark chocolate bars. Combine two boxes of pudding mix and 6 cups of whole milk in a large saucepan set over medium high heat. When it starts to warm up, add chocolate pieces and continue to stir until the mixture boils. Remove from heat and set aside.
- Line a 9 x 13 baking pan with one layer of ½ inch slices of pound cake. Spread one-third of the pudding over the layer of cake. Repeat layering process two more times, alternating cake and pudding.
- Insert a few toothpicks in the top of the cake to keep plastic wrap from resting directly on pudding and cover. Refrigerate for 12 hours to allow the cake to chill and the pudding to settle.
- Prior to serving, spread a layer of freshly whipped cream over top of cake.
If you have a stash of good-quality baking chocolate, I encourage you to simply empty it into the pudding. It seems to be able to absorb quite a bit without consequence. You can serve this cake with as little as 3 hours' chilling time, but it is best if left to settle and chill overnight or at least 12 hours.
Main photo: Chocolate icebox cake with Valrhona, Scharffen Berger and Ghirardelli chocolate. Credit: Caroline J. Beck
Whether black as a shiny top hat, or dusted with fine white powder, salty licorice hits you with a blast. Sweet and salty and sour, it frankly takes some getting used to.
The Finns, however, adore salmiakki, as it's called in their impenetrable language. It's as much a part of the culture as saunas and Sibelius, Angry Birds and Moomins. A gift of the salty treat to a homesick Finn will bring tears to his or her eyes, in a reticent Finnish sort of way, of course.
Other northern European countries, particularly the Netherlands, share the partiality for both sweet and salty licorice. The Dutch, in fact, claim to eat the most amount of licorice (or drop, as they call it) per person in the world — nearly 2 kilograms a year.
Licorice textures, flavours
More from Zester Daily:
» Where A Pursuit of Food Obsessions Can Lead
Salty licorice can range in texture from fudge-like to hard, with varying degrees of chewiness and elasticity. Many forms have a powdery dusting on it as well. It can be used in liqueurs, vodka, chocolate fillings, syrups and ice cream (gray ice cream!), and found in a dizzying array of shapes, from diamond lozenges to balls, fish, rings, boats, skulls, cars, guitars and cute little animals.
The saltiness also varies from tart to tongue-numbingly sour. Fazer's "Turkish Pepper Original®" is a hard, salty licorice with a fiery powder center — meant only for "real connoisseurs," it warns.
The sharp, stinging taste comes from ammonium chloride, which also is used as an old-fashioned remedy for soothing coughs and reducing phlegm.
It was this salty variety that took me by surprise during a recent trip to Mikkeli, the center of the Eastern Finnish Lakeland region.
The town's lively little marketplace included many vendors — some selling waxy siikli potatoes still coated in rich black earth, others intensely sweet Polka strawberries, and still others offering tiny vendace lake fish dipped in rye flour and fried in butter.
But there also was a licorice stall. Boxes of yard-long cables in fluorescent colors were arranged side by side: The many flavors included mint, strawberry, orange, toffee and banana as well as salty and sweet jet-black varieties.
Memories of licorice
The scene took me back to growing up in Lancashire, England, and going to the corner sweet, newsagent and tobacconist shop — a particularly British institution — for a twist of "Spanish," a chewy, sticky bootlace of licorice that gummed up your back teeth. "Spanish" is widely believed to refer to the root grown by Spanish monks in North Yorkshire, but there is no evidence for this. Laura Mason in her book "Sugar-Plums and Sherbet: The Prehistory of Sweets" notes that Spanish licorice was apparently better quality than homegrown, and thus a likely explanation for the term.
According to Mason, Pontefract cakes are shiny round licorice coins embossed with a seal, dated 1760. That is when George Dunhill, an apothecary, improved upon the local licorice by mixing the extract with sugar and flour in proportions sufficient to make a palatable cough remedy in Yorkshire, an industrial region where the damp, chilly climate took a bronchial toll.
The eponymous "embossed cakes" are still made there today, although, sadly, no longer with locally grown roots.
Sir John Betjeman, one-time Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, was even inspired to write a poem about love and sex in the licorice fields of Pontefract — although the object of his affection probably never forgave him for describing her flannel-clad legs as the "strongest" in Pontefract.
The best licorice, such as the Finnish Panda All Natural licorice, is made simply, with molasses syrup, wheat flour, licorice extract and aniseed oil. Other good quality licorices use natural acacia gum as a thickener. You can now also buy organic licorice candy.
Licorice in cooking
Licorice has been "rediscovered" in Finland as a flavoring in new Nordic cooking (although whether Finland is Scandinavian, Nordic, Baltic or something unique unto itself is another story). Sensational licorice-spiced crème brûlée is one of the star turns at the excellent Ateljé Finne in Helsinki; and at the beautiful Russian-style Tertti Manor near Mikkeli, talented Jaakko Kinnunen offers an inspired juniper gravad lax with licorice sauce.
But it is the Finnish fondness for salty licorice that really made me blink. In Helsinki, there is a vintage kiosk that sells an extraordinary 91 varieties (precision is a national virtue in Finland) of salmiakki. It is, of course, called the Salmiakkikioski and a magnet for salmiakki-lovers seeking obscure varieties or powerful strengths they can't get anywhere else.
The acidic, chemical edge of salty licorice inspires either love or hate. I was told that you had to keep sampling until the initial gagging reflex turns into a baffling compulsion to determine its place on the spectrum of deliciousness, and then press on to the final moment of resistance-is-futile surrender. That is when the polar opposites of saltiness and sweetness supposedly merge in Planet Candy satisfaction.
I'm still working on it.
- ⅛ cup (30 grams) strong licorice
- ⅓ cup (100 grams) sugar
- ¾ cup (2 deciliters) cream
- 6 egg yolks
- 1½ cup (4 deciliters) whole milk
- brown cane sugar
- Put licorice and sugar into a kettle and add cream. Cook over low heat until licorice and sugar have melted.
- Remove the kettle from stove. Mix in egg yolks and milk. Let it rest for about 30 minutes, pour into 5-ounce (1.5-deciliter) ramekins.
- Bake in the oven at 203 F (95 C) for about 30 minutes, or until custard is set. Cool and refrigerate for a few hours.
- Before service: If any condensation has formed on the surface of the custard, gently dab with a sheet of paper towel. Sprinkle a fine layer of brown cane sugar over the top. Caramelize with a chef's blowtorch. Let rest for about 10 minutes, serve.
Main photo: Licorice stand at a market in Mikkeli, Finland. Credit: Clarissa Hyman
Growing your own vegetables and making bread are two of life's great pleasures. How wonderful it is that they can be combined, so that much of the produce from your garden can be made into delicious and unusual breads — including often overlooked, but wonderful, vegetable breads.
Root vegetables make excellent bread and can be used grated (raw or cooked), or cooked and mashed. Beets, carrots, parsnips and potatoes can all be used like this. Spinach and all members of the squash family can be used to make lovely and unusual loaves. As a rough guide, equal weights of flour and puréed vegetables work well; if using grated vegetables, use half the weight of vegetables to flour or equal weights, depending on the concentration of flavor that you want.
More from Zester Daily:
» Bread salad, a perfect summer meal
» California-style crusty bread
Be aware that the vegetables will alter the structure of the loaf. The texture of the dough may become heavier and it may not rise as much as a basic wheat loaf, but don't worry; the finished loaf will be fine. Some vegetables have a high water content, which can make the dough unmanageably sticky, so add water slowly and be prepared to use less than you might expect. If you have cooked the vegetables, use the cooking liquid instead of plain water for added flavor. The moistness in these breads means that they keep well, usually staying fresh longer than wheat loaves (keep them in a bread bin). They can also be frozen.
You may not think of them as vegetables, but dried onion flakes, garlic, chopped olives or chilies will also give your bread excellent flavor without really altering the structure. Be careful using fresh garlic, as it can inhibit the action of the yeast. Add only small amounts of garlic and slightly increase the quantity of yeast.
Use our Endlessly Adaptable Bread recipe as a jumping-off point for variations. Here are some of our favorite combinations, and a recipe for tomato bread that is perfect for this time of year.
Potato bread
This bread has a lovely chewy quality and doesn't taste of potato! It is delicious with a handful of sage, rosemary or thyme mixed into the dough. If there is any left over, it makes very good toast the following day. It was often known as "poor man's bread" and became popular in areas where wheat was hard to grow. The poor Irish farmers famously survived on little other than potatoes for many years and there are many Irish recipes for potato bread. Potatoes are too starchy to use alone to make bread, but they can be substituted for some of the flour. When making mash to use for bread don't add milk or butter, as it will make the mash too soft. Remember this when you are preparing mash for the table and set aside some potatoes first. There is a recipe for potato bread on the Hafton & Kelly website.
Pumpkin and squash bread
Bread made with pumpkin or squash is slightly sweet and has a soft crust. To emphasize the sweetness, nuts, chocolate chips and dried fruit are delicious additions. Spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger or cloves also work well. Boil or roast the squash and then mash the flesh or purée it in a food processor. You can make this bread all year, using canned pumpkin. In season, butternut squash makes particularly good bread. Just before you put the loaf into the oven, brush it with an egg glaze and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.
Spinach bread
Spinach makes a wonderful bread with an attractive mottled appearance. This is the bread to eat with cheese and pickles or with a hearty winter soup. It also makes excellent sandwiches; as well as its look and flavor, it holds together well. Garlic, rosemary and thyme are all good additions. You can use fresh or frozen spinach; fresh spinach should be wilted and finely chopped, either should be well drained. Roll the dough in grated Parmesan just before leaving it for its second rise for a cheesy crust.
Beet bread
The addition of beet produces a soft loaf with a delicate flavor that is a brilliant raspberry pink. The crust is usually more subtly colored, but, depending on the beet, the inside can be quite a startling color. You can grate raw beet or cook and purée it. This bread is particularly good with cream cheese and makes great sandwiches.
Zucchini or courgette bread
Grate the vegetables and add 1/2 cup of soft brown sugar for a deliciously moist, sweet loaf. Nutmeg, cinnamon, chopped walnuts and dried fruit are great additions. Onions, garlic and mushrooms will produce equally delicious savory bread, which can be sharpened with paprika or red chili.
This bread is a perfect partner to cheese and pickle or soup and, of course, tomato salad. The recipe comes from "The Kitchen Garden Cookbook: Tomatoes," by Jane McMorland Hunter.
- 3 ½ (500 grams) cups strong white flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons (7 grams) easy-blend yeast
- 1 tablespoon tomato purée
- 6 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped or whizzed briefly in a food processor (If you are using dry tomatoes, soak them in olive oil first so they soften up. When you add the tomatoes to the bread mixture they should be in about 2 tablespoons of oil.)
- 12 black olives, pitted and chopped (optional)
- 1 ¼ (300 milliliters) cups tepid water
- Handful of rosemary
- 3 to 4 cherry or baby plum tomatoes
- Put the flour, salt, yeast, tomatoes, tomato purée, and olives (if using) into a large bowl and mix well. Pour in the water gradually, mixing in well, until you have a dough that is soft and workable but not sticky. Turn onto a floured work surface and knead for about 10 minutes.
- Shape the dough into a round and put it in a greased bowl, turning so it is well coated. Cover with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place. After 1 ½ to 2 hours it should have doubled in size.
- Punch the dough down, remove it from the bowl and knead gently for a minute.
- Grease a large baking tray and shape the dough into a loaf (long or round, whichever you prefer) straight onto it. Cut the cherry or baby plum tomatoes in half lengthwise. Push them and small sprigs of rosemary into the surface of the dough. This is easiest if you make a cut in the dough with a pair of kitchen scissors and insert the tomato or rosemary into the resulting gap, otherwise they tend to spring out of the dough. Cover with a tea towel and leave for another 30 minutes to rise again.
- Preheat the oven to 455 F (230C/Gas 8).
- Cook the bread for 10 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 400F (200C/400F) for another 15 to 20 minutes. The loaf should be nicely risen and golden and sound hollow when tapped.
- Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
Main photo: Bread and the vegetables that can be used in it. Credit: Jane McMorland Hunter
Willy Wonka might not agree, but not all chocolate is created equal. To find out what makes the difference between a $1 candy bar and an artisanal, single-origin chocolate, I went to Tuscany, Italy, to tour the headquarters of Amedei, a four-time winner of the Oscars of chocolate — the coveted Golden Bean award. There I went on a guided tasting of chocolate that Food & Wine Magazine calls "the world's best."
My visit began with a tasting of the various Amedei products, including tiny bars called Napolitains, assorted handmade pralines, and finally the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted, dense and rich with a hint of toasted almonds.
Amedei is the only Italian chocolate company that supervises chocolate production at every stage, from growing the cocoa bean to the finished product. During the visit, Cecilia Tessieri, owner of the Amedei chocolate company, explained chocolate's complexity and gave an insider's peek at how the pros taste chocolate.
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Chocolate tasting tips
Tessieri says that to truly appreciate fine chocolate, you must use all five of your senses.
See. Start with your eyes. Great chocolate should have a nice sheen, but not be too glossy. Too glossy means that instead of using only expensive cocoa butter, less costly vegetable oils were added.
Hear. Break off a piece. Do you hear a snap? That's a sign that the cocoa butter was properly crystalized.
Smell. Fine chocolate offers lovely complex aromas, and depending on where it's from, may show off hints of toasted almonds, honey or dried fruit. Defective or lesser chocolate smells burnt or metallic.
Touch and taste. Put a small piece of chocolate onto the center of your tongue, but don't chew! Fine chocolate has multiple flavor levels and chewing doesn't allow time for them to reveal themselves. Cocoa butter is solid at room temperature, but soft at body temperature, giving us the chance to experience the silky feel of the chocolate as it melts in the mouth.
How chocolate is made
The visit continued with a video on harvesting chocolate and then a tour through Amedei's facility for converting cacao beans into award-winning chocolate. "It all starts with the cocoa beans," said Cecilia, holding a handful of aromatic toasted cocoa beans. A single cacao tree bears about 30 usable pods each year, yielding roughly 1,000 cacao beans, enough for about 2 pounds of chocolate.
The mature pods are handpicked and then carefully cut open so as not to damage the beans, which must remain intact to maintain a full chocolate flavor. When a cacao pod is first opened, it has no hint of chocolate fragrance. Instead, the white fruit pulp has a lovely peach and tropical flower aroma and a fruity tart-sweet flavor.
The pulp and the beans are pulled out of the pod and placed in a container, often a simple wooden box lined with banana leaves, where it is left for seven to nine days. The beans ferment in the pulp's juices, infusing them with additional flavor. They are then spread out to dry in the sun for about a week where they are gently turned, often by women on tiptoe, in what Cecilia calls the "the cacao dance."
When the beans arrive at Amedei, Cecilia begins the process of converting these precious cacao beans into chocolate.
1. Cecilia does a "cut test," slicing a sample of the beans in half to confirm their quality. Cacao beans must be perfect to be included in Amedei chocolate—uniform and smooth.
2. Then they are roasted in special proprietary indirect fire equipment.
3. After that, the concasseur, or nibbing machine, separates the husks from the beans to obtain tiny bits of cacao beans, the "nibs."
4. Next, the nibs are ground into a thick paste called cocoa mass. I tasted the warm, fragrant mass and found it perfect, but Cecilia explained that it was still too acidic and dense. The missing crucial step is called "conching." a slow, gentle grinding process lasting 72 hours that results in a silky smooth chocolate with perfect flavor. Finally comes tempering, melting the chocolate to just the right temperature to crystallize the cocoa butter. At this stage, the chocolate is ready to be made into the various Amedei products.
Cacao pod
From around the world
Cru, a French term meaning "growth," refers to wines from a particular area. Since the '80s the term is also used with other products that change flavor depending on where they're made, including beer, whisky and chocolate.
"Chocolate can taste very different depending on where it comes from," explains Cecelia during our tour. She scours the globe in search of the very best tasting beans. She illustrated those differences in a guided tasting of Amedei's Cru line, which includes chocolates made exclusively from cocoa beans from various countries, explaining the special aroma and taste of each:
Delicate, creamy taste with a lovely long-lasting finish.
Smells like hot chocolate with hints of lavender and herbs.
Rich with lovely hints of citrus and mint that almost tingles on the tongue.
Delicate roasted cacao aroma and the intriguing scent of a forest in the fall. The taste is just as complex, with a sequence of flavors revealing themselves, from green tea to pistachio and almonds to tropical fruit.
Fabulously complex aroma of dates, figs, apricot jam and ginger with a touch of carob, olives and freshly cut wood. The taste delivers all that the aroma promises, with the tang of candied orange peel and jam and richness of butter. Deep dark chocolate taste, yet not at all bitter.
Gourmet aromas of cocoa powder, Cuban cigars and a summer garden filled with fresh tomatoes with a taste of walnuts, vanilla and sweet persimmons.
Delicate aroma of sugar, warm melted butter, dried fruit and sandlewood. Naturally nutty taste of hazelnut, walnut, almond and cashew with slightly spicy hints. Intense flavor that is long lingering and rich.
Groups of at least four, and up to ten guests, can schedule a tour of Amedei in Italy. For information and reservations, go to their website, call 011-39-0587-48-4849 or e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com
There is one Amedei store in the United States, so if you can't get to Italy, you can visit their shop at 15 East 18th St. in New York City, which features daily free samplings.
This flourless cake has a crisp, macaroon-like top layer and a dense, incredibly moist center. As the cake cools, it collapses just a little, creating a pretty webbing on the delicious crust. It's made with only five ingredients, so be sure to use only quality chocolate like Amedei. A must-try classic! Recipe is in "DOLCI: Italy's Sweets" by Francine Segan (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2011)
Note: The cake's total time includes 20 to 30 minutes of rest time.
- 7 tablespoons, 3 ½ ounces, unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
- 7 ounces dark chocolate, 70% cacao or higher, preferrably Amedei
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 4 eggs, separated
- 2 tablespoons potato or cornstarch
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch spring form cake pan .
- Melt the butter and chocolate in a small bowl, either in the microwave or over a saucepan of gently boiling water.
- In a large bowl beat the sugar and egg yolks with an electric hand held mixer until creamy and pale yellow. Add the chocolate-butter mixture and beat until creamy. Add the potato starch and mix until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Slowly, using a spatula, fold the egg whites, a little at a time, into the chocolate mixture until combined.
- Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for about 20 minutes, until just set in the center. Don't over-bake.
- The cake will continue to set as it cools. Allow it to rest for about 30 minutes before cutting it until it collapses and the top crust cracks a bit.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
Driving along shoulderless highways in northern Michigan, it's hard to miss row after row of Montmorency cherry trees loaded with fruit waiting to be baked into pies or squeezed into a liquid elixir that scientists and doctors assign superfruit status.
With more than 2 million cherry trees, Michigan produces over 70% of the country's tart cherry crop, and July is the start of the season for a fruit that has been credited with controlling cholesterol, lowering weight and boosting heart health. Not to mention being at the heart of a mean cherry pie.
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Tart cherries might well deserve a medal for their healthy attributes, but I'd much rather test their ability to satisfy my craving for the yin-yang balance of sweet and tart enveloped in one glorious double-crusted pie. That's because tart cherries, not sweet, have always been the basis for the best cherry pie. Bakers can control the amount of sweetness with sugar and the tangy essence of tart cherries keeps the pie from becoming cloyingly sweet.
In a part of the country where any proper pie judge will tell you that cherry pies are not to be trifled with, I decided to go out on a limb and conducted a loosely structured pie contest of my own. In traditional measure, blue ribbons become a battle between best crust and most cherry-packed (but least gooey) filling, and awards only go to those that deliver both.
Ferreting out the best the region had to offer, I sampled options from The Cherry Hut, a 92-year old pie-making institution in the little town of Beulah (8 points for cherry-packed filling), to local behemoth Cherry Republic (9 points for crunchy, tender crust). Naturally, I couldn't avoid including a few farm stand options in between. In the end, a roadside pie spiced with a bit of balsamic vinegar took the prize for my personal favorite. Cask-aged balsamic, which delivers its own magic blend of sweet and tart, was the perfect complement to the fruit and provided a deep base of flavor to the freshly harvested cherries.
But after all that pie, I was feeling a bit sleepy, and no wonder. Did I mention that tart cherries contain melatonin, a natural hormone that helps you sleep at night?
The winning farm stand pie inspired my interpretation of the classic Michigan cherry pie. I've blended a rich, cask-aged balsamic vinegar into the filling and added a bit of Fiori di Sicilia, a blend of floral, citrus and vanilla essences, to keep the flavors bright.
- Pie dough, enough for two crusts, chilled
- 3 pounds, pitted fresh or frozen (do not thaw) tart cherries
- ⅓ cup Pie Enhancer (or 6 tablespoons flour)
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons cask-aged balsamic vinegar
- ½ teaspoon Fiori de Sicilia extract (or vanilla extract)
- Egg
- Sparkling sugar
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Roll out enough dough for one crust and place in 9- to 10-inch deep dish pie plate, leaving a 2-inch overhang. Return to refrigerator while assembling filling to keep dough cold.
- In a large mixing bowl, toss to combine cherries, Pie Enhancer or flour, sugar, salt, balsamic vinegar and Fiori di Sicilia. Fill pie dish and return to refrigerator again while preparing top crust.
- Roll out remaining pie dough and trim into 1-inch slices. Weave for latticework and gently transfer over filling. Turn lower crust up and over edges of lattice and crimp with fingers or fork.
- Whisk egg with 2 tablespoons water and gently brush over top crust. Sprinkle with sparkling sugar.
- Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes, crust will be golden brown and fruit will be gently bubbling when done. Remove to rack to cool.
Not one to cling to tradition, when I find a new ingredient that is a big improvement over my old ways, I embrace it. Such is the case with King Arthur Flour's Pie Enhancer, which I use to thicken fruit pies. A blend of superfine sugar, modified corn starch (aka Instant Clear Gel) and ascorbic acid, it sets the pie juices but avoids that gluey texture that flour sometimes imparts. But follow your own tradition and if flour works best for you, then substitute 5 tablespoons of flour for the Pie Enhancer and increase the amount of sugar in the filling for a total of ⅓ cup sugar.
I am planning to compile a personal cookbook — not for publication, but rather as a private collection of favorite recipes to give to family and friends. The idea has been brewing ever since I got a phone call from a son at college who wanted to know how to make "skinny fries," a potato recipe he'd grown up with. At other times I get requests from friends for how to make a particular dish they had at my house. Although some of the recipes I will be compiling are for family dishes that were passed down to me, many come from cookbooks or magazines, recipes I probably tweaked before deciding they were perfect. What makes my cookbook personal, of course, is that it will reflect my particular tastes in food, leaving out ingredients I do not like, and going heavy on the types of dishes I love.
We all know that the world has become flooded with recipes so that selecting the best of them is challenging and time consuming. I have spent years accumulating thick files of favorites I culled after having tried so many other recipes that were similar but not as good. So I see my collection as a worthwhile service to loved ones by offering them what I consider to be the best of the best. It took years, for instance, to find the perfect chocolate cake, a dessert I now bring to potluck gatherings where I am always besieged for the recipe. I also have a biscotti recipe that experienced biscotti eaters tell me is the best they have tasted. I have recipes that were handed down by the women in my family, and passing these along gives me a sense of continuity and order. These include recipes for a winter soup made with beans and meat, and a meatloaf made light and fluffy because of its secret ingredient — a grated raw potato.
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I routinely hear tales from friends who regret not getting their grandmother's recipe for a dish they continually think about, but don't know how to make because no one in the family thought to jot it down. It would have required trailing after grandma in her kitchen, and managing to measure and write down what she instinctively threw into a pot. I have even heard stories about grandmothers who will not give out their recipes, or if they do, will deliberately leave out key ingredients. Their motivation seems to be the hope that family members will continue to visit and eat what they cook. My expectation for myself is to have it both ways — to continue to please my visiting family members with the dishes they love and then to hand them all copies of the recipes.
It's 'CSI: The Kitchen'
I have seen compilations of family recipes assembled by other people, and they tell me a lot about the person who put the collection together. They add up to what I think of as a food profile. Just as FBI profilers can speculate about perpetrators of crimes by analyzing clues left behind, I feel I can gain insights into a person by examining the foods they choose to eat. But the work of a food profiler is far more pleasant — investigating noodle puddings and fruit pies rather than bullet holes and blood spatters. I have noticed, for instance, that books filled with dishes for grilled meats strike me as man pleasers or may even have been created by men. Ethnic backgrounds are also easy to spot — loads of pasta recipes with tomato sauce suggest Southern Italy, while yeast breads and coffeecakes using cardamom say Scandinavia.
Regional recipes are striking when, for instance, books recommending sweet tea and directions for such desserts as triple-layer coconut cake and sweet potato pie announce old-time Southern cooking. Recipes using such stylish grains as farro and quinoa and a wide variety of herbs and spices suggest an adventurous eater, while those relying mainly on salt and pepper for seasoning strongly hint that the eater has conservative tastes. And there are subtle clues. If many of the recipes yield eight or more servings, I deduce that the person either has a large family or entertained frequently, and the reverse is true. Recipes serving just two indicate a more private lifestyle.
My personal food profile
If I were to be food-profiled, the absence of cilantro, the herb people seem to either love or hate, would herald my aversion to the thing. Also noticeable would be my preference for cooking with olive oil rather than butter, and that an indifference to butter and cream carries over to desserts that omit whipped cream. Recipes for candy and cookies will lord it over puddings and tarts. My book will contain anecdotes, tributes to my sources for recipes, and nostalgic comments about the people whose recipes I am reproducing. I would hope to be seen as someone with a generous spirit, but most of all I would like to be seen as someone with a respect for history. I long ago learned that history is not just about the actions of presidents and kings but about the aspirations of regular people, and personal cookbooks can be a key to understanding how these people really lived.
Chocolate Chip-Pecan Biscotti
(Adapted from "Cooking With Les Dames D'Escoffier" cookbook)
Prep time: 30 minutes (this includes the slicing before the second baking)
Chilling time for dough: 3 hours
First baking: 45 minutes
Resting time between bakings: 1 hour
Second baking: 25 minutes
Total time: 5 hours 40 minutes
Yield: 48 biscotti
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
10 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1⅓ cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs divided
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons milk
1½ cups miniature chocolate chips
1½ cups chopped pecans
- Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl until blended. Add two of the eggs, one at a time, beating just to blend after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and milk, then the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips and pecans.
- On a lightly floured surface, divide the dough into 3 equal portions. With lightly floured hands, form each portion into an 8-inch long log and flatten it to 2½ inches wide; place each log on a piece of plastic wrap large enough to cover the dough. Wrap in the plastic and chill for at least 3 hours or up to 3 days.
- Position oven rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat oven to 325 F. Line a heavy, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Unwrap the logs of dough, leaving them sitting on the plastic. Beat the remaining egg well to make a glaze. Brush the tops of the logs with the glaze and place them on the parchment-lined sheet. Space them 2 to 3 inches apart since they will spread. Bake 45 to 50 minutes until golden brown and just firm to the touch. Let logs cool completely for at least an hour.
- For the second baking, heat oven to 300 F. Line one or two sheets with parchment paper. With a long serrated knife, cut the logs crosswise into ½ to ¾ inch slices. Arrange biscotti on the sheets, putting the ends cut side down. Bake for 15 minutes and then turn them over and bake for another 10 minutes. Cool and store.
Variation for cranberry-pecan biscotti: Omit chocolate chips, vanilla and milk. Add 1½ cups dried cranberries, 3 tablespoons lemon juice and 1½ tablespoons lemon zest. The rest of the directions are the same.
Main photo: Chocolate Chip-Pecan Biscotti. Credit: Barbara Haber
In our house, asking for cherry pie means one thing: sour cherry pie. Just as there are "eating apples" and "cooking apples" that differ in acid level and sugar content, these same differences exist between cherries. Sweet cherries — like eating apples — are delicious raw. Sour cherries, with their higher acid level and lower sugar content, will make you pucker if you pop them into your mouth straight off the tree. While a pie made with sweet cherry varieties (such as Bing or Rainier) can be cloying, a pie made with Montmorency or North Star cherries has the perfect balance of sweet and sour.
It's been my experience that people who say they don't like cherry pie have never tasted a sour cherry pie. Surprisingly few folks know that sour cherries exist, partly because it's hard to find sour cherries (Prunus cerasus) in many parts of the country. Sour cherries, also called tart cherries, are thought to have originated in the region between the Caspian and Black seas. Cherry trees still grow wild in that area, which includes part of Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Greeks were cultivating sour cherries by 300 B.C. and the popularity of these tart cherries spread quickly to Italy and throughout Europe.
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French colonists brought sour cherries to North America and by the mid-1600s cherries were plentiful in Virginia, my home state. Today most sour cherries commercially grown in the U.S. are produced along the Great Lakes in western Michigan, as well as in parts of Wisconsin, New York and Pennsylvania.
My love of cherry pies came early courtesy of my mother. She truly is famous for her pie baking skills — at least in her Virginia town where the local paper has profiled her and her homemade pies. She has forged some deep relationships with local sour cherry growers, who reserve gallons of cherries for her each summer. Even in a bad winter – like this last one, which killed off much of the cherry crop — my mother somehow leaves a supposedly "sold out" orchard with brimming boxes of cherries unavailable to the typical customer.
The harvest season for sour cherries is short — just a few weeks at the end of June and early July. This delicate fruit doesn't ship or store well, so the first step in making pies for the rest of the year is preserving the fruit. Sour cherries may be canned in the traditional way, but it's even easier to freeze them.
Although my mother often gets gallons of cherries at once, she freezes them in small batches. Seeding cherries is no small effort and it's nice to spread the work out over a longer period of time. But the biggest advantage to this method is that you can freeze the precise amount of seeded and sugared cherries you need to make one pie. My mom actually prefers making pies from frozen cherries because it's easier to control the amount of juice that goes into the pie filling if you separate the liquid from the cherries during the thawing process.
How to preserve sour cherries
To freeze, wash and seed four cups of cherries and place them into a large bowl. Sprinkle cherries with ½ cup of sugar, stir to combine, and let rest for 30 minutes. Freeze sugared cherries in 1.5-pint freezer containers or quart-sized freezer bags. Be sure to label your containers with contents and dates. Frozen cherries can be stored for up to one year. When taking frozen cherries out to thaw, put them in a colander with a bowl underneath to collect the juice.
If dealing with fresh sour cherries seems like too much work or sourcing them is an impossibility, you can often find jarred or canned sour cherries at Trader Joe's or Middle Eastern markets. These canned sour cherries are usually Montmorency cherries and they'll work fine. Just be sure that you're not buying cherry pie filling, which is usually more sugary goop than cherries.
The hardest part of making a sour cherry pie is finding the cherries, but making cherry pie does require a certain amount of practice. The following recipe comes straight from my mother. I cannot guarantee that it will make you the focus of local newspaper profiles or will make your kitchen a place where neighbors drop in simply on the off-chance they can get some pie. But it will make you a convert to sour cherries.
Recipe courtesy Linda Lutz.
- 2 quarts sour cherries (fresh or frozen)
- 1 cup and 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 3 cups plus an additional 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon plus a pinch of salt
- 1 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 egg, beaten
- ⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon cold water
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- 1½ tablespoons butter
- Wash and seed cherries.
- Place about 4 cups fresh sour cherries into a medium bowl and add ½ cup of the sugar.
- Let sit for at least an hour to allow cherries to draw juice, stirring occasionally.
- To make pie dough, place 3 cups of the flour and 1 teaspoon salt into a large bowl.
- Measure 1 cup vegetable shortening and add in small pieces to flour mixture. Using the tips of your fingers, pinch the shortening into the flour mixture until the flour-covered fat balls are the size of slightly flattened peas.
- Beat one egg in a small bowl. Add water and vinegar to beaten egg and stir to combine.
- Slowly pour liquid into flour mixture, stirring gently with two fingers until all liquid is added. Have a light touch with dough to keep it flaky. Stir no more than is necessary to work dough into a ball.
- Divide dough into three parts and shape into flat rounds. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate while you making pie filling.
- Drain cherries into a colander, reserving juice.
- In a saucepan, combine ½ cup sugar, 4 tablespoons of flour and a pinch of salt. Slowly stir in reserved juice.
- Cook mixture until it begins to thicken, then add cherries, almond extract, and 1½ tablespoons of butter. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.
- Remove cherry filling from the heat and let cool while preparing pie dough.
- Take two rounds of pie dough out of refrigerator and unwrap them.
- Working with one round at a time, roll pie dough out on flour covered pastry cloth or countertop.
- When the round of dough is about half its needed size, use fingers to pinch any cracked edges back together. Continue rolling dough until it's large enough to cover your pie pan. Dough should be no more than ¼ inch thick, but a generous 1/8-inch thick is even better.
- Place first round of dough into bottom of pie pan and roll out the top crust using the same method.
- Pour cherry filling into pastry lined 9-inch pie pan. (My mother prefers a glass pie dish so she can see how the bottom of her crust is browning.) If filling appears too thick at this point, add a bit of water before pouring filling into pie crust.
- Cover with top crust and cut approximate10 half-inch long slits in the top crust.
- Sprinkle the top of the pie with 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar.
- Cover the outer edges of the pie crust with aluminum foil or a metal pie edge protector to keep the edges of the crust from burning.
- Bake at 425 F for 35 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. If top crust seems to be browning too quickly, lay a piece of aluminum foil over the top of the crust for the last 10 minutes. Let pie cool before serving.
You can use up to 1½ cups sugar, but we like cherries pies tart. Extra round of pie dough can be frozen for future use. Keep dough round in plastic wrap and place in a freezer-safe plastic bag. Pie dough will keep in the freezer for several months.
Main photo: Mom's Sour Cherry Pie is always a crowd-pleaser. Credit: Susan Lutz
In the United States and perhaps elsewhere, most picnics are simply enjoyable outdoor meals and social occasions, where thoroughly normal groups of people decide to have a fun time and eat and drink some well-prepared goodies out of doors. In the United Kingdom, things are rather more complicated. By tradition, British picnics are of three sorts: the romantic, the grand and the disastrous.
Dream setting
The romantic picnic encapsulates simplicity in beautiful surroundings with a wonderful view, a stream, a wood or flower-filled meadow. The tradition started a couple of hundred years ago, when people began to see nature and the countryside as picturesque rather than dangerous. The food, drink and company are all planned to add to the picnickers' awareness of nature and its beauties and seem particularly associated with happy and impressionable youth. Such a picnic involves little display or showing off, and not even a great deal of organisation. Sandwiches, fruit and some chilled wine or lemonade would be enough to make the right company happy in this setting — if it can be found. Somehow, this is the sort of picnic people dream of, but don't very often end up having.
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Over the top
The grand picnic is often and sometimes deservedly mocked. At its worst, it is based on the assumption that conspicuous expenditure will win the envy and admiration of spectators and guests. Victorian writers such as Anthony Trollope describe picnics with attendant servants, Champagne and dancing. Nowadays, grand English social occasions such as horse racing's Royal Ascot, rowing's Henley, opera's Glyndebourne and the end-of-term speech days of the most expensive private schools all provide opportunities for showing off. Too much expensive food and drink such as lobsters, oysters and the very best Burgundy and Bordeaux, overdone table decorations, gilt wood chairs, striped awnings and tents, and even uniformed staff to wait on the picnickers are all to be seen. The hosts are often reduced to a state of nervous anxiety by the knowledge that highly competitive picnics are taking place all around them, and so only the richest, most confident and best prepared can expect to win.
When all goes wrong
The disastrous picnic is generally a product of nature winning the war with man. Although it can start out as one of the previous types, is somehow felt to be very traditional in itself. A romantic picnic in a field can be quickly spoilt by a herd of inquisitive farm animals, or worse, a loose bull. The British climate is far from reliable and can ruin the best-laid plans. Insects such as bees, wasps and biting flies can rout a group of potential picnickers. Rain, gusting wind, cold and driven sand at the seaside are some of the other hazards that British picnickers may have to face. In addition, picnics taken by a river provide the opportunity for at least one guest to fall in, and for others to feel duty-bound to follow as rescuers.
Then there's the grand combination
When the grand merge, as they sometimes do for some reason with the disastrous, the situation is regarded as particularly amusing by spectators. Not only bad weather but the influence of gravity on expensively prepared cold collations can cause havoc. One of the smartest horse racing meetings in England takes place annually at Goodwood in West Sussex towards the end of July. Most people, of course, just come to enjoy themselves, but every year some overdo it. The most elaborate picnics are held on a steep slope and each year at least one of these is bowled downhill, with elegantly clad members of the (presumed) aristocracy in hot pursuit. Shellfish, the finest vintages of the best wine, cold beef and salmon, along with the occasional windblown table, glass, cutlery and awnings, have all been known to end up crushed against a boundary fence at the bottom of the hill. It is not, of course, considered polite to laugh too openly.
Since International Picnic Day is on June 18, this seems the right moment to celebrate with a delicious cold dessert. The recipe that follows is taken from our book "For the Love of an Orchard," and would enhance any picnic. Pretty enough to pass for grand, delicious enough to increase a sense of romance and consoling enough to mitigate a disaster, it is based on a dessert dish that a visiting French friend prepared for Chris and his family a few years ago. Alice Soubranne, who is an excellent cook, was kind enough to give us this family recipe.
- Sweet pastry (use pâte sucré or a half-pound block of good-quality chilled supermarket pastry)
- 3 to 4 apples, peeled, cored and sliced, approximately 2 cups
- 4 to 5 tablespoons caster or superfine sugar
- 6 egg yolks
- 20 U.S. fluid ounces tub of crème fraîche
- 2 ounces butter
- Blind bake the pastry in a buttered 10-inch tart pan or flan case with removable base at 350 F. The shell should be firm and dry but not browned or biscuit-like.
- Arrange the sliced apples prettily in concentric circles and again bake at 350 F until softened but holding their shape (say, 10 minutes).
- In a big bowl, beat the egg yolks with enough sugar to make the mixture neither too sweet nor solid. Then fold in the gently melted butter and crème fraîche and pour this custard mixture over the apples in the baking case.
- Turn the heat up to 375 F and cook the tart for about 30 minutes so it is, in Alice's words, "goldy and has a tan," but does not burn. It must not even turn dark brown or the custard will curdle at the edges, making a break line where it meets the pastry.
- Eat cold, served with crème fraîche or cream. Other fruits can in principle be used for this tart, including plums and probably cherries, but the right liquid content and height in relation to the finished custard is important.
Presentation is important, with evenly cut apple rings and golden custard. Good apples for this recipe should have a slightly spicy taste with good acid, and hold their texture when cooked in the custard. Norfolk Pippin, Ashmead's Kernel and most Russets are really good. Of the generally available supermarket apples Braeburn is reliable and tastes good, holding enough texture. Bramleys are too tart.
Main photo: Picnickers gather at St. James Park in London. Credit: iStock


text:
This article is part of the That Insidious Beast series.
I live in Brier Hill, New York-2, near the Canada Wall. We get lots of military broadcasts and all sorts of weird Canadian broadcasts that the military tries to jam. We're also pretty close to an Area Bleed, which can cause other weird effects. Growing up I thought the weird things that would come across the TV were ghosts. My dad told me they probably were, ghosts of whoever made the broadcasts.
Dad is gone. Mom too, but my aunt lets me stay with her while I finish school. In my spare time I have been recording some of the ghosts from TV on my old set. I don't know what they mean or what they are sometimes, I don't even always know they're people, but I record them.
I hope you think they're interesting.
Description: This video begins with a fade-in from scrambled signal. Waves of distortion and color shifts sweep over a copy of the Chicago Tribune newspaper claiming to originate from October of 2005. The camera pans up and down and left and right. It is difficult to impossible to read smaller text on the paper, but the larger headline is visible. "Believe it!" and "White Sox bring World Series title back to Chicago with historic sweep." Indistinct instrumental music plays in the background. The sequence repeats two times before a military tone overwhelms the audio and the channel returns to a scrambled signal.
Observations: A really weird clip. The Chicago Tribune offices were destroyed along with most of the city in the Betrayal of 1997. The White Sox have played for Washington D.C. since 1999 and the 2005 World Series was won by the Houston Astros. I don't know why someone would want to pretend Chicago was still around or that a different team won the World Series. I have seen similar clips airing of newspapers, always with heavy jamming. Apologies for the quality, my recorder wasn't hooked up so I had to use my camera to capture this one.
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