Merry Christmas!
Christmas Eve feast
My parents have a buffet on Christmas Eve, and usually a duck on Christmas Day (and for Thanksgiving).
Hudson Gateway tunnel construction site-to-be
J and I checked out a spot in the Hudson Yards LIRR train yard, near the convention center, that is going to hopefully have some visible construction work towards the new Hudson river train tunnels.
As part of the Gateway Program (construction info) to spiff up Northeast Corridor infrastructure between NYC and New Jersey, a new tunnel under the Hudson (map) is going to be built so that the existing tunnels can be fixed up and to eventually provide more rail capacity. The tunnels were damaged by Hurricane Sandy, as were many of the other tunnels into New York.
There’s supposed to eventually be a cut-and-cover section of the tunnel built right by the LIRR train yard. I wanted to see if work had started yet. J and I didn’t see anything, but there is a lot of equipment getting set up. We will check back soon!
Hudson river and New Jersey in the background.
Winter in New York
It’s been a fair bit below freezing all week. That seems right for winter, but is a little unusual from my experience living here. In previous years, the temperature hasn’t stayed below freezing for very long, and if it snowed (rare), it would melt the next day.
It’s snowed and “iced” twice this week, which was exciting! And because of the temperatures, it’s stuck fairly well in places that don’t get salted. We have a big empty lot next to us that has a nice wintery atmosphere.
The snow from last week. It looked heavier in person.
Post-snow, with my bird of paradise.
Stuffed animal kit
J’s mom kindly gave me a craft kit for Christmas. It reminded me of all the craft kits I got and the subset of those that I finished as a kid.
This company makes various stuffed animal (mostly amigurumi) kits. They increase in complexity from here.
Pretty cute! I repositioned the eyes, wings, and beak to make it even cuter 🙂
Trip to Green-Wood Cemetery
We walked around a big cemetery in Brooklyn last weekend (the main point of the trip was to eat Asian food in Sunset Park, but I’ve also wanted to go to the cemetery). There’s a Gothic revival entrance gate, with a huuuuge parakeet nest in the central tower.
Parakeets. Their noise gave them away before we could even see them.
Lots of fancy monuments and grave stones there.
Mausoleums…
With custom gates.
The founder of “The Truth Seeker” (some magazine?).
And a nice pond. Given the temperature, there weren’t many people out, but there were a couple of birdwatchers.
On a previous attempt to visit the cemetery, one group member thought it was creepy and then it started snowing.
Garden update
Getting some tomatoes at my community garden plot!
I also have a Cherokee purple tomato developing
Chinese hand-pulled noodles
We made a vegetarian version of da pan ji (chicken-potato dish) with homemade noodles! The noodle recipe is from an Asian noodle cookbook from the library, This is a book about noodles by Brendan Pang.
Noodles
- 300 g flour
- Pinch of salt
- 155 mL (1/2 cup + 7 tsp) water
- Combine flour and salt. Add water in and knead 10-15 min with a stand mixer + dough hook (Knead longer, maybe ~20 min, by hand.)
- Lightly coat the counter with oil. Press the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 in thick. Cut into 10 equal strips.
- Hold each strip at both ends. Stretch and slap against the counter until ~8 in long.
- Boil 2-3 min.
Pottery visit
While visiting my parents in Austin for Thanksgiving, J and I went to a local pottery studio and gallery.
Compared to New York stores, the studio was shockingly large inside, like a small warehouse.
There was quite the variety of ceramic items at the store, decorative, useful, and both. I liked the following items.
Great homemade pizza!
I found a great new pizza dough recipe.
Usually my homemade pizza dough is low on flavor, so a master-bread-baker friend recommended using some sort of pre-ferment (discussion of different types). I found an online recipe linked in the preferment article. The author seemed to know what they were talking about and it turned out super well!
Pizza dough
Poolish (preferment)
- 100 g flour
- 100 g/mL water
- 0.3 g yeast
Dough
- 250 g flour
- 120 g/mL water
- 8 g salt
- 5 g yeast
- Mix poolish ingredients. Leave at room temp ~8 hours. If rising longer, can decrease yeast (0.2 g for 12 hour rise, 0.1 g for 16 hours).
- Mix poolish with dough ingredients. Knead (7 min with stand mixer, 10-15 min by hand).
- Divide dough into four portions and shape each into a ball. Oil and cover. Let rise 1 hour.
- Flour hands, work surface, and dough balls. Press each flat, and stretch or roll into a circle 10 in in diameter.
- Lightly top and bake 6 min at around 600°F.
If using a pizza stone (highly recommended), preheat the oven and stone 45 min before you baking the pizzas. The oven should be set to it’s highest temperature (around 550-600°F).
If you don’t have a pizza stone, I have a workaround that seems to work well.
Right before you want to bake the pizzas, when you start preheating the oven, heat a large cast iron skillet on the stove until very hot. Put it in the oven upside down. The thick bottom will act similarly to a pizza stone, but heating it on the stove is faster than heating in the oven.
We made this on the recent very cold day. It was 24° in the afternoon and around 10° in the morning.