Day Zero Project #97: Put together a 1,000 piece puzzle

 As I've mentioned before, I love any hobby stereotypically reserved for the elderly. If your grandpa loves doing something then there is a 95% chance that I also love it. If there was some way I could make a living sitting on a porch playing cribbage and complaining about my wife cooking peas for the millionth time, I would be in heaven.

So, while some might find the idea of staring at puzzle pieces blankly for many hours over the course of several days to be a tedious exercise, I was looking forward to it. 

Plus, as it turned out, I ended up being sick for the entire week so it was a perfect week to stay home and do some puzzling. 

And what exactly does puzzling look like? Thanks to the power of time-lapse photography (aka a free animated gif maker I found on the Internet) you can now live the excitement of the past week. 

Enjoy. And you're welcome.

Day Zero Project #93: Bake and decorate cupcakes.

Baking cupcakes in my house is a bit of a risky proposition. You see, my lovely wife, is quite the baker and cupcakes just happen to be her "thing." So for years I've just let her bake away without interfering. She makes the cupcakes. I make anything fried. These are the sacred lines drawn in the pearl tiles of our kitchen floor.

But, like all good rules, this one was perfect for breaking and my Day Zero List gave me the perfect opportunity to see how my mini-cakes would stack up against the pro's. 

Sunday she was distracted by making organic dog treats even though we don't own a dog, so I took the opportunity to sneak onto the battlefield...sorry, kitchen, to throw down the cupcake gauntlet.

A few notes on making cupcakes:

1) I knew they weren't healthy, but seriously, these had a Paula Dean amount of butter.

2) Cupcakes are easy to make. See these simple instructions.

3) Although easy to make, decorating is hard work. Sure you can make one look good by spending 20 minutes working on it.

But then you realize there are 23 more just like it and at your current pace it will take you three weeks to decorate them all.

I made two really nice looking ones and then it all went downhill, including six cupcakes that ended up with no frosting or decoration at all. Yes, I'm that lazy. 

My foray into cupcakes was fun and I did a decent job with them before remembering that I don't even like desserts that much. That said, from now on I'll stick to frying the appetizers and leave the baking to the household pro.

Day Zero Project #56: Make a List of My 50 Favorite Songs

How does a person even begin to pick just 50 songs? That's tough work considering the fact that my iTunes is sitting at 8,688 songs (don't worry, I have never downloaded music. I buy it or it was given to me when I used to run a music website). 8,000 of which I think are pretty decent and 688 of which are weird indie bands with either banjos or girl singers on my computer courtesy of my lovely wife.

Anyway, through a very scientific method I figured out that these were my 50 favorite songs, complete with YouTube links.

These are in alpha-order rather than ranked 1-50 because narrowing it down this far was hard enough and ranking them anymore would be impossible.

Note: If you'd rather not click on each link, you can go here and listen to the whole playlist.

"Absinthe Party at the Fly Warehouse" by Minus The Bear
 "Ænema" by Tool
"Anna Begins" by Counting Crows
"Baraga Embankment" by Bear Vs. Shark
"Bartender" by (hed)p.e.
"Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)" by Deftones
"Bermuda Locket" by Crosses
"Black Water" by The Doobie Brothers
"Buildings Began To Stretch Wide Across The Sky, and the Air Filled With a Reddish Glow" by Red Sparowes
"Bukowski" by Modest Mouse
"Bury The Evidence" by Tricky
"C. Thomas Howell as the 'Soul Man'" by Botch
"Casting Such a Thin Shadow" by Underoath
"Change (In the House of Flies)" by Deftones
"Cowboy Dan" by Modest Mouse
"Cross Out The Eyes" by Thursday
"Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" by The Gaslight Anthem
"F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X." by The Fall of Troy
"Fists Buried in Pockets/Threat Level Midnight" by The Riot Before
"Fox's Dream of the Log Flume" by mewithoutYou
"Galena" by Balance and Composure
"The Hustle" by Bars of Gold
"I See Everything" by La Dispute
"In The Wake of Pigs" by Oh, Sleeper
"In Threes" by Since By Man
"Inertiatic E.S.P." by The Mars Volta
"Jabberwocky" by Fear Before
"Jane Doe" by Converge
"King Park" by La Dispute
"L'Via L'Viaquez" by The Mars Volta
"A Lesson in the Abuse of Information Technology" by The Menzingers
"Let Me Go" by All Get Out
"Lives" by Modest Mouse
"More Than Just Music, It's a Hairstyle" by As Friends Rust
"Nerdy" by Poison The Well
"Pints of Guinness Make You Strong" by Against! Me
"Rise Up! Rise Up!" by Cursive
"Route 1" by All Else Failed
"Salty Grave" by Life In Your Way
"Seamless (Acoustic)" by Grade
"Searching For a Familiar Clarity" by Against! Me
"Short Stories with Tragic Endings" by From Autumn To Ashes
"Soulless" by Fake Problems
"Tiny Dancer" by Elton John
"The Water Vs. The Anchor" by On The Might of Princes
"Will to Die" by Strife
"The Year Summer Ended in June" by Misery Signals
"Wrongdoers" by Norma Jean
"You'd Be Cuter If I Shot You In The Face" by Curl Up and Die
"Your Pearly Whites" by These Arms Are Snakes
"Zombie Prescription" by Snapcase

Day Zero Project #63: Attend a flea market.

How does one even describe a flea market? These crazy places where one can find almost anything you could ever want and a billion other things that you didn't even know you wanted. I'd imagine hoarders have dreams of places like flea markets. As a guy who despises extra stuff, it can be a bit nightmarish.

With all that junk around I figured that today would be as good of a day as any to try out the Hipstamatic app that I've read a little about while Googling "How to make the pictures that I take on my phone not be the worst pictures ever taken by anyone ever."

The plan was to use the Hipstamatic's Random Setting feature and snap a few photos. I wasn't going to look at these and see if a different filter might be better or think about them at all until I got home. Some worked out really well. Some, not so much.

With this goal in mind we got into the car and headed to Pinellas County's shining beacon of stuff, Wagon Wheel Flea Market.

So without further ado I present, "Dustin's Magical Mystery Flea Market Tour and Photo Extravaganza."

We started, like most adventures do, at the entrance.

From there we walked through the wonderful Land of Rusted Tools.

After a quick tour of the Forest of Accidentally Inappropriate Signs...

Seriously, click on that picture to make it bigger and change the angle that you are looking at this monitor and read that duck.

Anywho, we then entered a place known simply as The Maze.

We wandered through The Maze for what seemed like hours enthralled by the decorations.

Unable to find the exit, time continued on...

The decorations become more odd and fantastic at every turn, we even found some porn.

Okay, the porn wasn't that fantastic, but what was it doing at a flea market?

We finally managed to escape The Maze. We were ecstatic to see the fresh air and were anxious to return home but were sidetracked by the best part of the flea market: a whole section dedicated to fresh vegetables and seafood and all sorts of other edible goodness.

Everyone loves pictures of food, so I'm going to finish this thing off by hitting you with a bunch in a row. Get ready to be hungry in 5..4..3..2..1..

Day Zero Project #91: Make cheese.

It's pretty much fact that cheese is the world's best food. The Internet says that making an infographic is the best way to display data in a way that people understand and find interesting, so I've compiled the following data, all true:

And if cheese is the world's greatest food, what could possibly be better than homemade cheese? I'd guess nothing, but since I've never had any cheese that was homemade I was happy that someone put this on their list of Day Zero Project goals for me to steal.

Paramount to this project is that it be fast and easy. I didn't want to spend 4 years aging cheddar, so that left me with the soft cheeses (mozzarella, ricotta, etc.). When I had a whole bunch of buttermilk leftover after making crème fraîche this week, I googled "Buttermilk Cheese" and was directed to a recipe from the queen of jail recipes herself, Martha Stewart. And if you can't trust a felon's cheese recipe, whose can you trust? 

You can check that recipe out here, or read on for the recipe for Buttermilk Cheese. At this point, I've probably typed more words than you want to read, so I'll keep it picture heavy from here on out.

First you get your tools of the trade together.

Then you get all your ingredients together:

You mix all that in a pot, and boil for roughly 10 minutes. The recipe says 8, but that wasn't enough for me.

Then, as Miss Muffet can tell you, that will seperate into two things:

You have your curds.

And your whey:

Whey is garbage. Or you can reuse it somehow, I'm just not sure. But I threw it away. So you take those curds that you've scooped into the cheesecloth and wring all the excess liquid out of it, let that cool and, TA-DA, you have buttermilk cheese.

It's kinda plain, so I wouldn't eat it as-is. You could do anything you wanted here, I had a thought to do honey and crushed walnuts. You could go with an herb coating on the whole thing and serve with crackers. I ended up making a blueberry honey sauce to go with it.

Or if you need a close-up to help you assemble your final product (or if you want them pre-made and ready to serve to your wowed party guests).

That's it. Very, very simple. If I had it to do over again I'd add a little flavoring to the mixture while it boils as the cheese is very plain in this form. But if you want to make it, here you go (Thanks again Martha Stewart)

Buttermilk Cheese 

Needs:
Cheesecloth - cut into 3 12"x12" squares
1 quart whole milk
1 1/2 cups buttermilk - I used the lowfat kind and it worked really well.
2 tsp salt

Directions:

Layer the 3 cheesecloth sections and put them on top of a strainer in your sink.

Mix the whole milk, buttermilk, salt and also throw in some sort of flavoring agent if you want to get crazy (vanilla, etc.).

Heat that over medium-high heat until the curds (cottage cheese looking things) seperate from the whey (milky liquid looking stuff). Recipe says 8 minutes, but it took a little longer for me.

Then you use a slotted spoon to take those curds out of the pot and into the cheesecloth.

Fold up that cheesecloth and squeeze to remove excess liquid and BAM! You can serve it right then and there. Or put it in the fridge for a little bit and it'll firm up more.

And if you want to make the Blueberry Honey Sauce, here you go. I just sort of winged it here, so feel free to change as I'm certainly no Martha Stewart.

 

Blueberry Honey Sauce

Needs:
1 cup blueberries
1/4 cup honey
a few squirts of lemon juice (from a real lemon would be ideal, then you could zest it, too, but I had none).

Directions:
Mix all those in a saucepan and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Then let get to room temperate.

Spoon over whatever would be better with Blueberry Honey Sauce (and what wouldn't be?).

Day Zero Project #101: Have dinner by candlelight

"Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear." - Lucas, Empire Records.

Or if you'd rather have the video version (and who wouldn't):

Occasionally while I am out and about with my friends someone will ask me about this list in one of two ways. Either they say I'm crazy and then keep a healthy distance from me for the entire rest of the evening or they wonder how I get the ideas for the things that I end up doing (whether it's this list or other crazy stuff I end up posting about elsewhere).

Here's the secret, first I steal the basic premise of the idea. This is a Day Zero Project list, so I obviously have the shell of an idea already formed. Then, I let my overactive imagination go to work and try to come up with the most awesome idea I can. I think to myself "Yeah, dinner by candlelight is cool, but how can I bring it up a notch or twelve."

Let's trace the idea from it's roots to try and show just how imaginative (i.e. potentially crazy) my head is. First, we were talking about foods that we ate growing up. As a native Midwesterner both me and my wife remember eating goulash growing up.

"Ah, but how can that be served fancy?" I asked, since I do love the idea of making food look pretty.

"Impossible," responded my lovely wife. "It's just a delicious, gross looking pile of macaroni, beef and tomato sauce with a little paprika and sour cream thrown in."

To which I responded, "Impossible? I'll show you, I'm going to start a restaurant and serve only super-fancy versions of the Midwestern comfort foods that we ate growing up and...wait? Did you say sour cream in your goulash? That doesn't even make sense."

And so an idea was born. An impossible idea to create a restaurant with delicious goulash. But before I go public with my restaurant I should probably do some recipe testing, right?

That reminds me, I have  a Day Zero goal to have dinner by candlelight! I'll pretend I have a restaurant, light some candles, and cook some food. And now I have my new restaurant Comfort.

 And every restaurant needs a menu (and bourbon cocktails), right? Done.

And, of course, there has to be food, right? Done.

For the record, the menu item pictured here is my Midwestern Comfort Trio. Which consists of (from left to right

1) Runza - bread dough filled with seitan (fake beef), onions and shredded cabbage. This recipe needs major work.

2) Goulash - aforementioned basic ingredients with homemade Crème fraîche and paprika. I don't like to brag (actually, I do), but I knocked this one out of the park. So good.

3) Loosemeat sliders - slider bun with homemade pickles, spicy mustard and seitan. Just a bit salty, but I've almost got it figured out.

So, basically, that's how a crazy idea is formed. Spend a few minutes, come up with something a little weirder than your first thought, make a restaurant and then let your significant other go to the coffee shop and brag about their partner.

It's really that simple.

Also, if you happen to decide you want to make a fictitional restaurant, take a tip from the real deal and hire someone to do the clean-up because this is no fun...

Day Zero Project #11: Attend a pig roast.

Before I start I'd like to offer a quick warning. If you are a card-carrying member of PETA or have a pet pig, you probably don't want to continue reading this.

Seriously, click away. I'm pescatarian now and was vegan for a dozen years or so before that, so I know what I'm talking about. Rather than read on perhaps you can just click on over to the Reggae Shack website and read all about their curry tempeh. It's amazing and you should make it a point to get to Gainesville, FL and try it.

Now that we've taken care of that, lets get to the pig roast part!

As previously stated, I don't eat pigs. Thankfully the goal that someone had was to "attend" a pig roast, not to "eat some pig" at a pig roast. That would have been substantially more difficult. But, I've been to a pig roast before and I have no problem with it.

As a matter of fact, I'm much more open to a pig roast than one might assume for the simple reason that I think it's important to know where your food comes from and how it gets to your table. Meat isn't something that just happens to show up pre-ground or sliced and ready for your table, so if you can go to a place, pick out the pig, roast the whole thing while it still looks like a pig and then enjoy the fruits of that labor, more power to you!

And when you start off with this, you are pretty sure you are making a pig:

Last time I went to a pig roast years ago the thing still had a head on, so I was a bit bummed this time around. I could have had much freakier pictures, plus it would seem that the cheeks are good eatin'.

And how do you take this weird pinkish blob of animal and turn it into something you can eat? You use a magical device called a Caja China.

Or if you are real old-school you can just bury the pig underground. But this version seems much more sanitary to me.

Pig goes in looking like this:

Pig comes out (many hours later) looking like this:

Then you carve it up and eat it. I was a few beers, a shot of rum, a misguided tasting of some weird apple ale, 6 games of Beco Ball and about 20 games of cornhole in at this point, so I completely forgot to take a picture of how it looks post-carving. Let's just say it looks a lot more like the stuff one is used to eating.

And did I try it? Absolutely not. The great part about a pig roast is that it's like a giant pot luck and I was able to fill up with all of the sides, including the two that we brought:

Vegan-style Mofongo

Sweet Rice Fritters

Oh, and did I mention the best part about a pig roast, even for you vegan-types? The day is centered around cooking something that takes hours and doesn't require a lot of attention. So what does that mean? It means you get to spend a full day with people that you like doing whatever it is that you like doing. And any day spent like that is a good day in my book.