News for March 2010

brotherhood of the banjo


I’m guessing nobody is reading this because a) I already posted once today so you needn’t check back for a month or b)upon reading my earlier post you said, “shucks! it’s nate’s birthday! forget work i’m going to ride my bike and play my banjo!” Which is exactly what I did. I guess it is important to read my blog. So with a fat wad of birthday cash and a heck of a wind I went out for a 20 miler with a stop at one of my all time favorite bike shops, the Hiawatha Cyclery. http://hiawathacyclery.com I love this shop and I love their blog http://hiawathacyclery.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-trip-to-nahbs-or-hobo-life.html but I rarely get over there because it’s not so fun to look at nice frames while wondering where your 2 year old has wandered off to. But today I took the afternoon off from my usual plague of shoulds and hit the bike paths and roads. Hiawatha has a wonderful approach to biking – similar to the folks at rivendell rivbike.com but with more humility and minnesota nice.
I took the long way which involves
oh – blog over – Jason just showed up!
to sum up – i got a banjo brothers bag and I love it and it easily fits a vine park brewery growler. happy birthday me!

Posted: March 30th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags:
Comments: 1 Comment.

33 On 330

Happy Birthday Nate

Posted: March 30th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags:
Comments: 2 Comments.

why's this bread all up in my grill?

Humble Walk had it’s very first bake sale on Sunday. Four loaves of bread turned into $80. Not bad. Now the kids can go on an urban immersion retreat. Rock on.
As one of the contributing bakers I had planned on bringing a loaf of sourdough but since sourdough takes a bit of time and can be a little unpredictable with how it uses that time I also made some simple sandwich bread and a garlic baguette. Those are the ones that made it to the bake sale. I stuck the sour dough in the fridge to slow it down for the night and returned to it on Monday.
Here’s what I came up with.
Step 1. Make dough.

Step 2. Grill Steaks. This step is optional, but why would you fire up the grill just to bake bread? Why’ll we’re at it, why would stand next to those fine slabs of beef at the end of a long day without a beverage in hand? Again, you don’t have to, but why wouldn’t you? Oh and you’ll note there’s an iron griddle preheating on the top rack – that’s where the bread will be living in a bit.

Step 3. Set down your optional beverage and remove the steaks from the grill. At this point I slid the coals over to the left and placed my griddle on the main rack to the right. I thought this might give a more indirect heat and lower the risk of scorching the bottom of the bread.

Step 4. Go eat your steak. Check back in a bit. I actually forgot this step. I meant to check it at 45 minutes but got distracted with some basement remodeling details. Luck for me an hour and 15 minutes worked just fine.

Step 5. Cut it. Adorn it. Eat it.

I think as spring progresses I’ll try this a few more times – it’s always nice to keep the head outside and I hate wasting all that heat after you’re done grilling.
Go buy some steaks, go bake some bread.

Posted: March 23rd, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags:
Comments: 3 Comments.

3 things to be happy about

1. banjo lessons
2. good beer with good friend
3. biking home through downtown st. paul as the wild game cars turn the streets into parking lots. best comment from drunk woman as i passed, “what the (bleep) has he got on his back?” Drunk woman (that totally narrows my readership by half), that would be my banjo.

Posted: March 16th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags:
Comments: No Comments.

get a bell

get a bell for your bike. ring it. pedestrians will thank you. no really, they will.

Posted: March 15th, 2010
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags:
Comments: No Comments.

Like Nate on Facebook

Purchase Reform Follows Function on iTunes