Visitors again

So my brother and my folks came up this weekend.  Mom and Dad had been here before, of course, when I moved in, but in addition to being tired and disoriented and the weather being miserable we didn't see much.  This time we had a chance to actually go around and see things.

(Random aside: for some reason I can manage to get around without getting lost just fine when I'm alone, but as soon as Mom and Dad get here I go the wrong way, have no idea what street's which, and can't properly read a web page for some reason.  I have no idea why this is.)

Saturday we did the local rounds -- all stuff I've talked about on this blog before.  Dad was talking up Blue Fin, the Japanese restaurant we'd gone to when I moved up, and Joshua decide that was where he really wanted to go, so we ate there again, and I suspect we will continue to eat there, and often.  Joshua, Dad, and I all had the lunch sampler and it was amazing.    The plan had been to go to church, but I misread the website and we arrived as they were singing the last hymn, so we took the subway out to the Boston Commons and Public Gardens -- saw live swans this time, in addition to the swan boats!

We had a late dinner of Ohio Sweet Corn :)  Not exactly "Local first"; so sue me.

Yesterday we took a gamble and picked a park up at Cape Ann that looked promising according to its website.  This is what we got:

And this:

I can't even describe the place.  Beautiful, rugged granite cliffs and wild surf.  There were a lot of people, but it didn't matter, everyone left everyone else to enjoy themselves and the waves were so loud that you didn't hear a lot of chatter.

We stayed a long time.

The Yogurt Recipe

Not to turn this into another food blog, but since I was making it, and since I remember that some folks had asked me about the recipe, here it is.

Yogurt is one of the few things I can reliably make in my tiny kitchen (save Kombucha, and seriously, there's so much that can go wrong with that one that I'm not going to share the recipe, you're on your own there) and it's very simple.   There's only one real trick--you must be immaculately clean.  This is true of any fermented product (talk to a home-brewer some time), and yogurt's a little more tolerant, but pretend it isn't.  Learn the taste and smell of properly-made yogurt before you start -- yes, I'm recommending you go sniff some yogurt).

Before you start, go to the store and get some live-culture yogurt.  Traderspoint is my favorite by far, but there are many to choose from, including Dannon and Stonyfield.   Pick something you like, because your yogurt will pick up some flavor from what use.

What you need:
A quart canning jar
A food thermometer--ideally one that's never been used for meat
2 tbsp live culture yogurt
Just shy of a quart of milk (you need a little space in the jar)

Heat your milk to 180 degrees, stirring to make sure you don't have hotspots.   If the milk forms a skin (and it will), skim it off and discard.   Set the milk aside, covered, and let it cool to 118.  Add your yogurt, and stir gently with and up an down motion.  Cover again, and hold at temp for 6-12 hours.  Refrigerate.

A couple tips:

• Never rinse your thermometer in hot water; use cold initially.  You'll get a buildup of milkstone, which in addition to being kind of nasty can affect how things set up.
• Make sure all your utensils are free of any soap residue -- it kills the yogurt.
• Experiment with the cooling temp; it depends on your culture.  118 is what I've found is ideal for Traderspoint.
• I've found the best way to keep things at temp is to just set up a pot with water at about 130 degrees and set the jar of milk in there.  I have a very warm kitchen, though.  You might find that it's better to use hot water in a cooler so you can seal it.

Boston Commons

So if you've been wondering where I've been (and I doubt anyone was), I was home for a week.   Since this is about the city, I won't talk about the country, save to say that only this setter could have a vacation involving a poisonous snake and waiting out a violent storm in a pickup truck (not, thankfully, at the same time).

Anyhow, I came straight back and went to the EduWeb conference in... Boston.  We're cheap here at Harvard.  Luckily, lots of conferences come to us, so we kind of cheat.   It made it easy to return the rental car, at least.

To get to the wonderful Boston Plaza Hotel and Towers (another landmark worth seeing), I take the Red Line into Boston, then pick up the Green Line and hop over to the Arlington stop -- or so Google tells me.  While I did this the first morning, when I didn't have to be on the trains until 10:00, something told me not to listen to Google when it came to getting on the extremely weird and overloaded Green Line at 5:30 that afternoon.  So I decided to walk to Park Street station, which turns out to be about 15 minutes from the Arlington stop on foot, and right through the Public Gardens and Commons.

Two books familiar to most of us from our childhood take place at least partially in and around this area -- That'd be Make Way for Ducklings and Trumpet of the Swan.  Welp, below you get both ducks*, and, way in the background, the swan boats.

 

And just so you get a chance to see where I've been hanging out all week, the Imperial Ballroom at the hotel:

*Actually, after looking more closely, there are actually ducklings in that picture.  Totally missed them while I was walking by.