[ transplog ]

Hurricane Alex did not visit us on the Gulf Coast, despite showing an early inclination for our fair city. Instead she gifted Houston with rain and lots of it. In the past two days, I've seen plump drops flicking from the skies and turbo-charged dashes of rain and sideways swirling masses of rain.

And today on the drive home, I spotted a new water feature in the neighborhood streets...

Rain comes down, sewer fills up

The forecast for this weekend offers more of the same. That means slogging again through urban ponds and wrestling with stubbornly inverted umbrellas. (And count Houston lucky if no homes or streets flood.)

And I hope that Alex moves on, soon. Fireworks! We need fireworks.

Aside from prying open Houston's margarita-obsessed cocktail preferences, anvil bar & refuge has delved into educating the eager about what they drink. Saturday's Spirit & Cocktails 101 focused on that island nectar, scotch. (And we strayed into gin's storied past too.)

Of all that has gone digital these days, the scotch class cannot: no digital classroom, this. Nearly of 50 us assemble in the bar. Each student sits before an anthology of scotches that shimmer gold and amber in the afternoon sun.

A roadmap to the various subtle and sledgehammer tastes of scotch

Each stubby glass wears a concave glass lid: all the better to prevent that honey, peaty, caramel, or briny fragrance from wafting away. The left side of our roadmap offers a blended, two Islas, and an Orkney. On the right, a Lowlands, a Speyside, and two Highlands.

Island geography

Equally important, we all have water, bread, olive oil, and roasted hazelnuts within easy reach. The cumulative power of tasted scotches should not be underestimated! (And the roasted hazelnuts, which seem too salty and oily before the tasting, turn out to be tireless palate-cleansers.)

Next up: actual tastes and a few cocktails, too.

A wild hair asserted itself on Good Friday: the unaccountable and sudden interest in dyeing eggs with natural dyes. Usually the joy of fussing with Paas tablets and the hexagonal copper egg sling is enough fun.

But the Interwebs revealed many possibilities for an earthy-toned rainbow: beets, turmeric, onion skins, spinach, blue berries, coffee, and more.

Natural dyes require less activity but also more time to leave their mark on the eggs. After boiling the eggs as normal, they bobbed gently in their respective dyes overnight. A more responsible egg master might have turned or rotated them: we did not. The onion skins produced a brilliant, marbleized tone that was the winner of this experiment.

And the overall result is indeed a lovely one, you might agree:

A plate of naturally dyed eggs, starting from the green egg at left: spinach/green bean, beet stalks, onion skin, and turmeric.

Seven eggs dyed naturally

After a night spent bobbing in boiled beet stalks with vinegar, each egg has a subtle but very pleasant toning.

Grandmothers know best: eggs dyed with onion skins proved the surprising power of an oft-discarded scrap.

And thus ended the baking extravaganza in a utilitarian bent. For the third act of baking Sunday, I tried out a simple, hearty recipe for that staple of the Irish isle: soda bread.

The recipe is courtesy of the good folks at Baking Bites, who rightfully point out that a bread without yeast is an easy kitchen feat indeed: Oats and Honey Irish Soda Bread.

The resulting loaf emerges from the oven with a faint golden tinge, although its free-form shape resembles nothing so much as vacillating amoeba. The flavors mingle ever so well, with a sharp burst of raisin tempered by a hint of mellow honey. And the bread is photogenic, too.

Slabs of honey-raisin Irish soda bread ever so gently toasted.