Since I like to work with five pound pork bellies and want pink salt in my cure I modified the recipe as follows.  It turned out well but I found the bacon very savory: it worked beautifully in all my recipes as lardons but didn’t taste right for breakfast with eggs and toast.  Breakfast requires my sweet bacon recipe.

5 lb skin-on pork belly

Cure
5 tbsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. pink salt
3 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. black peppercorns
2 tsp. fennel seed
2 tsp. caraway seed
2 tsp. dried rosemary
2 tsp. dried thyme
4 bay leaves
2 garlic cloves, Finely chopped

1. Combine peppercorns, fennel seed and caraway seed in a spice grinder and coarsely grind.  Combine with the rest of the cure ingredients.

2. Put the pork belly in a gallon zip top bag and dump half the cure on the belly, turn the bag over and dump in the other half.  Seal the bag and give it a good rubdown, getting the cure evenly spread.

3. Put the bag in the fridge for about seven days, turning it over every other day.  There will be liquid in the bag after a day or two and that’s just fine.  If the belly isn’t firm when pressed after seven days give it another two days.  You want it to feel firm as the moisture should have been drawn out and the cure drawn in.

4. Give the belly a good brushing off under running water: you want the excess cure off but leave any stuck herbs or peppercorns.  Dry it off and put in the fridge uncovered for a full day.

5. Smoke the belly at 200 degrees until it’s internal temperature reaches 150 degrees.  Alternatively you can put the belly on a baking sheet and put into a 200 degree oven until the belly’s internal temperature reaches 150 degrees.

6. Put the belly skin side up on a cutting board and make a small cut at one corner just under the skin.  Using a pair of tongs get a good grip on that corner and start pulling the skin off: when the belly is hot the fat will give way to your removing the skin.  This has to be done right away or you’ll end up having to cut the skin off with a long carving knife and that’s just a pain.

7. Wrap it up and refrigerate: you now have homemade bacon that will keep for about a month.

Along comes SkyDrive Explorer to seamlessly integrate SkyDrive as a folder into your Windows environment.  Instead of working through the web page you can now use Windows Explorer, XP to Windows 7 supported.  It’s a tad slow since you’re accessing cloud storage instead of a local hard drive but that’s to be expected.

Microsoft SkyDrive is a great free online resource: with SkyDrive Explorer it becomes a must have backup resource.

Two hundred years ago, Britain lost the Napoleonic War and fell under the thumb of French domination. Gaining independence after decades of civil disobedience and anarchist bombings, the Socialist Republic of Britain is now a small, unimportant backwater connected by a railway bridge, steam-powered dirigible, and mutual suspicion to France. When a British diplomat’s murder is made to look like suicide, ferocious Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard stalks a ruthless murder squad through the heart of a Belle Epoque Paris, the center of the greatest empire in a world of steam-driven hansom cabs, automatons, and flying machines. LeBrock’s relentless quest can lead only to death, truth . . . or war.

This is a steampunk Victorian drama and thriller with humanized animals in the style of J.J. Grandville, which I’m guessing was the inspiration for the name.  The story is fast paced and well written: I didn’t intend to read all 108 pages at once but I was compelled to keep turning the pages.  Lots of action, intrigue, and excellent dialogue.  The background story of England as a French territory and it’s Victorian sense made for interesting plot twists and were a big plus.  The steampunk angle fits as well but I can’t say the characters all being animals did anything for me, other than to say this medium allows for it.  LeBrock is an action Sherlock Holmes with a faithful sidekick in tow.  It’s gets a bit too violent at times but that’s almost a requirement for a thriller today.

I’ve been a long term fan of Talbot’s art since his Luther Arkwright days but with Grandville he takes a different approach.  Colours and finish have the look of computer rendering and are very smooth.  Characters and backgrounds are well defined but appear a bit static.  The art is a bit slick for my taste but works beautifully with the story and makes a complete work, a symmetry found only in works written and drawn by the same creator.

Dark Horse offers a three page preview: check it our for yourself.  I enjoyed the overall package, especially the cover.  There’s no dust jacket: instead we get a three colour (or is it one colour since black and white aren’t colours) raised impression hardcover.  Overall for $17.95 with discounts from Amazon it’s a great value and a must read.

Last time around I had received my RMA replacement video card from eVGA but it didn’t work with 3D applications.  I contacted tech support and they suggested checking the 12V voltage in the motherboard’s power settings but instead I used a digital multimeter and checked that and the PCI-E 6 pin power connectors.  All three were within spec, between 11.98v and 12.04v.  Did the same on the borrowed system with the same results: my power supplies were giving proper power to the system.

Passed this along and eVGA opened another RMA for my replacement card and paid for the return postage both ways; very classy since it wasn’t my doing. Received my second replacement card: unlike the last one this card was used, with a screw missing from the fan assembly and lots of scratches.  I put it into my system and the video card fan spun up to full speed but no video.  My system booted as my eVGA 680i SLI motherboard has a two digit POST display and it showed FF which is normal boot.  Took the card out and tried it in the borrowed PC but with the same results.  This time I took the card with me to work the next day and tried it on another PC outside my home and had the same results: it looks like the PC is booting but no video.

Opened another ticket with eVGA about this card.  Same tech responded and sounded a bit skeptical, confirming for me that every card is hand tested before being sent out.   Based on the condition of this replacement card I had a hard time believing that.  Asked if my three systems had the latest BIOS installed; odd question since I was able to use my 7600GT but confirmed they were up to date.   The tech opened another RMA for this card and again eVGA paid for shipping.

It had been a while since I had my PC up and running and coincidentally NCIX.com had an Asus Geforce 9600 GSO 512 MB on sale for $40 so I picked one up.  Cheap, cheerful and a nice backup card, plus it was great at folding.  It has a single PCI-E six pin power connector so I installed it without issue in my PC and was up and running.  This was all in my original system: the replacement Corsair TX850 is sitting on my shelf for my new PC upgrade that should happen soon now that the new Intel P55 chipset and i7 860 is out.

My third replacement card from eVGA showed up: a new GTX 260.  Removed the 9600 GSO and installed the GTX 260: booted up without issue.  Windows 7 recognized the new card and a reboot later I was good to go since I already had the latest Nvidia drivers installed.  Launched Left 4 Dead and played for about an hour with no issues: looks like my video problems were finally fixed.

From opening my first RMA request on June 26th to receiving my third replacement card on September 29th I had experienced a three month video card ordeal.  There were some big gaps between cards but that’s more from my extensive testing on multiple machines and lack of faith in my hardware: eVGA was quick to get replacements out to me once the RMA was approved and they received the shipped card back.

After the first card failed to work I blamed my power supply and bought a new one and borrowed a second PC to test on, and after the second card failed I picked up a spare video card just to be sure and tested on a third PC.  The techs I worked with at eVGA were quick in assisting me and getting replacements out but I’m not convinced things are checked very well.  The first replacement was a new GTX 260 and worked in 2D so that may have slipped through the cracks but the second was a real dud and had seen action in someone’s PC.  I’m thankful the supervisor approved my RMA and I’m confident in eVGA’s technical support staff getting replacement cards out, just not in their RMA testing.  I passed along these two posts to the eVGA customer service supervisor.

By staples I mean bread, butter, milk, eggs, sugar, flour.  I pay about $4.79 for four liters of whole (3.25% fat) milk, Tops was selling a gallon for $1.99.  I pay $1.99 for a dozen large eggs, Tops had them for $0.99.  I pay $2.97 for a pound of butter, Tops was $1.69.  Basically Tops shoppers are paying half of what their northern neighbours pay.  Ouch.

Basically it’s slightly smaller in diameter than the normal rack and has the two folding legs.  It works as advertised, allowing me to fit a full fourty sausages on my large Big Green Egg at home time for smoking.

Two problems: the folding legs are a pain to work with once the rack is hot and you have stuff on it, and the way they swing out makes placement on the main grill difficult.  Having fixed legs on the edge would solve both issues.

For extending your smoking surface it gets the job done.

The story was first published in 1953 and focuses on Guy Montag, a fireman whose job it is to burn books, just as it’s always been.  Thinking is closely monitored and entertainment is provided by the government through interactive television.  Guy begins to question his job and it’s values, along the way meeting deviant thinkers and being suspected by his wife and boss.  Hamilton’s adaptation presents a thoroughly compelling story: no holes or issues in the story or character development.

The visuals are beautiful.  The graphic novel is muted in its colours except for the fire: we are immediately presented with a gray tone to mimic the characters censored lives.  Page layout isn’t ground breaking but it striking and moves us along without difficulty.  Hamilton’s style is clean: he uses a lot of black that plays into the atmosphere.

All in all an excellent work.

I poked around a bit and found it was according to Apple model MA205LL/A which comprised an Intel Core Solo 1.5 GHz processor, 512 MB of DDR2 RAM, 60 GB SATA 2.5″ 5400 RPM hard drive, CD-RW/DVD-ROM and integrated 950 graphics.  Released in early 2006 this machine was very forward thinking with it’s DDR2 memory and SATA hard drive.

Without OS X to install I decided on Windows XP Professional and tried booting from the install CD.  Of course this being a Mac things are different and you need to know keyboard shortcuts to get it to boot and such.  Google revealed holding the Option key down during boot would present a boot menu, or holding down the C key would boot from the optical drive.  Looking at images of the Apple keyboard showed the Option key was Windows Key on my PC keyboard and the Apple Command key was ALT.

Locating my one and only USB keyboard allowed me to continue, but no matter what key I held nothing happened.  Looking online showed you had to press the key before the grey screen came up for I wasted an hour trying to hold the key at different boot opportunities to no avail.  Finally more online searching indicated this technique would only work when the keyboard was plugged into certain USB ports.  Cursing Apple and it’s oddness I moved the keyboard around until everything worked for me and I installed Windows XP.

Of course I didn’t have a lot of the required drivers but since Apple moved to Intel processors and introduced Boot Camp that allowed for dual booting I knew they were out there and a lot of searching found a kind soul who had gathered the boot camp drivers together.  We finally have a fully functioning PC!

Once working it seemed dog slow and more searching revealed two SO-DIMM slots in my Mac Mini that could handle up to 2 GB total: I had to find this information online because I couldn’t figure out how to get it open.  Another search (how did we get things done before massive internet search engines?) showed to flip the Mac Mini over and use a putty knife along the three sides to move plastic clips enough to get the cover off.  Inside showed very skillful engineering and my Apple scorn went away.  Four screws out and I had my two 1 GB SO-DIMMs installed.

With the additional RAM the machine was peppy but not a speedster; good enough would sum it up.  I looked at processor upgrades but the cost was too high, and I didn’t need more hard drive space since I store all files on my Windows Home Server.

I’m familiar with Windows so I tried out a few WAMP packages to get Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla running on my network so I could see what they’re all about.  All fairly straightforward to get running but like a lot of server type items if you have to get your hands dirty in the innards it can get messy.

Not to be outdone by free and opensource software Microsoft released it’s own free WAMP package called Microsoft Web Platform consisting of SQL Server, ASP.NET, IIS and Visual Studio.  It features a one click install and has custom one click install packages available such as Wordpress and Gallery.

All together it’s an easy installation and configuration and provides an alternative for those more comfortable with Microsoft products.

I’m a huge Darwyn Cooke fan and looked forward to this release: I saw him last year talking about it and jumped on the publisher’s preview.  Cooke has a retro 50’s style, simple and to the point, that really fits this time period.

I was about halfway thr0ugh the book when I realized it’s the same story as Payback starring Mel Gibson, except the movie deviated at the end.  It’s a great story of an anti-hero: a bad guy you can’t help rooting for.  Cooke adapted this to a graphic novel in such a way that it seems hard to believe it wasn’t meant to be read this way.  The first part of the story is told with no words, images giving us everything we need.  We don’t even see Parker until we’re more than twenty pages in.  At that point it becomes more of a traditional comic style but then switches to heavy text when we need more information.  It’s seamless and flows beautifully.

The visual style is exceptional, clean and to the point.  This isn’t full colour: one colour is used without and it somehow intensifies the period feel.  The book’s presentation and format was well thought out: standard hardcover dimensions, thick paper, excellent print values.  It’s a complete package, not a quick print, and a must read.

]]> http://www.ebabble.net/the-hunter-by-stark-and-cooke/feed 0