Our TV has been sitting on a little IKEA corner table since we moved into our current apartment, with gadgets and jumbles of wires un-aesthetically spread around it. So we've thought about getting some kind of media cabinet/table for a while, but for reasons of cost or time never actually did.
Before
With a long time since our last serious woodworking project, however, we decided to build ourselves a media cabinet. We (mostly Steph) researched a bunch of designs, and we found a Crate & Barrel bookcase (which, turned on its side, doubles as a media table) that we liked. At $199 we thought about just buying it, but it was a little too big, we didn't want black, and we wanted better-quality wood, so we decided to adapt the design and build it instead.
As usual, we started with SketchUp. First we copied the design:
We went to Discount Builders Warehouse, where we planned to buy the lumber, to make sure they had wood that would fit the design, and liked their 3/4" pine.
To better attach the shelves to the vertical boards (and for better aesthetics, if we could do it right), we decided to route 1/4" grooves for the shelves. SketchUp makes it easy to create "components" out of repeating pieces, and create a layer of rulers that can be turned on and off.
Once we liked the design, we could copy the whole thing and separate it to create a cut list. (We tried using the Cut List plugin, but it's not very intuitive and this worked just as well.)
With our cut list we went back to the store to buy the lumber. Unlike with the kitchen counter, when we carried lumber on the bus, this time we needed much larger boards, so we rented a car.
With each project, we have a reason to buy a few more tools. This time we added a saw horse and drill guide. Our parking space (under our porch, enabling a dangled extension cord) again doubled as our carpentry shop.
Over several weekends, we sawed, sanded, drilled, routed...
... assembled...
... primed, painted, and finished...
I wanted to attach the vertical boards to the top and bottom using dowels. Our precision gets a little better on each project, but it's still not perfect. So at the end everything was just a tiny bit off, enough to prevent it from being assembled perfectly. Taking out most of the upper dowels and trimming some of the rear boards made it all fit. The 1/4" shelf grooves, some dowels, eight screws on the sides securing the top and bottom, rear boards flush on all four sides, and flat metal braces screwed into the back make it very structurally sound.
And finally, our new media cabinet!
The store might have under-charged us a little for the lumber, because we got all of it for around $50. Not including new tools, the lumber, paint and miscellaneous parts for the project cost around $100. Factor in the value of appreciating your own well-done work and that's a pretty great value.
A few photos from a November weekend trip to Sonoma. We enjoyed an amazing brunch at the Fig Cafe in Glen Ellen on the way to Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, where we hiked Lower Bald Mountain and camped next to a (surprisingly quiet) Boy Scout troop. The next day we attended a wine tasting held in a airplane hanger. It was a nice, easy weekend getaway.
This post about an October road trip is embarrassingly late. We're playing catch up.
To celebrate my birthday, Ben planned a weekend for us visiting the former gold-rush towns in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
We first drove through the California Delta, the expansive inland river delta formed by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. The small delta towns attracted migrant workers from Mexico and Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and today much of the area remains dedicated to agriculture.
Of particular note is the town of Locke, which claims to be the only town in the United States built exclusively by the Chinese for the Chinese. From 1913 until 1952, it was illegal for Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Korean immigrants to own land in California. To circumvent this restriction, a group of Chinese merchants approached a local landowner, named George Locke, about building on his land. The town they created — Lockeport, later Locke — still exists, with many of the original buildings still standing.
After lunch at a biker bar in Locke, we headed northwest toward Amador County. Ever since we attended the Vintners Market in San Francisco last year, I had been wanting to visit Amador, one of California's newest wine regions. We had purchased a bottle from one of the Amador vineyards, and the owner had encouraged us to come visit.
We were really impressed with the wines at two of the wineries we visited: Jeff Runquist Wines and Cooper Vineyards (we even joined the Runquist wine club). Not only were the wines good, but they were reasonably priced (I think the most expensive bottle was about $30) and the tastings were free (a welcome break from some of the overpriced tastings we've encountered recently).
The New Englander in me loved all of the foliage. San Francisco doesn't change color in the fall.
And it wasn't just the foliage that reminded me of New England. Couldn't this church be right out of small-town Vermont? Instead, it's the California town of Sutter Creek, where we stayed in a cute bed and breakfast.
The next morning we headed south on Route 49, a historic highway that connects many of the former mining towns. We pulled in at a few "ghost towns" before arriving at Murphys, once home to one of California's most bountiful gold mines. During one winter, $5 million worth of gold was mined from a four-acre plot. [1] Today it's an upscale town with a few old-time touches, a beautiful spot to eat and wander.
Our primary destination for the day was Columbia State Historic Park, a Gold Rush town that wasn't abandoned or rebuilt, but preserved as a historic site. A group of prospectors discovered gold in Columbia on March 27, 1850, and by 1852, the town housed more than 150 shops and saloons, including a meeting house and three churches. The population included a sizable number of Chinese, French, Italian, Irish, German and Jewish miners. A fire destroyed the town in 1854 and it was rebuilt with locally made brick and large iron shutters; the resulting style of architecture is characteristic of Gold Rush towns. When another fire struck in 1857, only the brick buildings survived.
By 1853, an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 people called Columbia home, making it one of the largest cities in California. Over the next half-century, the miners unearthed as much as $150 million of gold, which helped finance the U.S. government and Union Army during the Civil War. The Wells Fargo scale in Columbia was used to weigh more than 1.4 million ounces of gold. It was so precise it could weigh a signature in pencil on a piece of paper.
The town began to decline in the late 1860s, before finally becoming a state park in 1945. It houses the largest single collection of existing Gold Rush-era structures. [2]
After exploring the town, we got back on the road back to San Francisco. The roads weren't the most interesting we've ever done, but the scenery was beautiful. And we ate dinner at a delicious Afghan restaurant to which we hope to return on future trips east.
The drive from Mexico City to Oaxaca is about six hours long and I've never been able to read in cars/buses, which left me plenty of time to stare out the window and watch the passing scenery. Most of the land between these two large cities is sparsely inhabited, but even so, drivers need to eat, and every so often we would pass a roadside eatery. I was intrigued by these restaurants seemingly in the middle of nowhere and took pictures when I could. Here's a collection of photos of the eateries we passed on the drive.
Start from the beginning of our Mexico trip. Mole: it's one of Mexico's most iconic dishes, an imposing recipe of dozens of ingredients that can take days to prepare. Most famous among Mexican moles (pronounced MOH-lay) is mole poblano, made with chiles and chocolate, and served over turkey at weddings, birthdays and baptisms. In Oaxaca — referred to as the "land of the seven moles" — the mole tradition goes far beyond mole poblano to include seven different types, each made with a distinctive blend of chiles and herbs. And thanks to the cooking class we took in Oaxaca, we can now make two of them — mole poblano and mole rojo.
We selected a class with a Oaxacan chef whose family used to own a restaurant in town. Oaxaca is famous for its food, and cooking classes are popular with tourists, but we wanted to be sure to find a class where we would be cooking, not just watching. Several of the better-known chefs were out of town, so we went with a guy named Agustin who had put up a flyer in our hotel. He was very enthusiastic and equally disorganized. But we got what we wanted — we got our aprons dirty making two moles, guacamole, two table sauces, two tomato sauces, enchiladas and huevos rancheros.
What follows are the recipes we learned, recreated as best we could from my notes and photos. (Agustin didn't approve of Ben doing most of the cooking while I recorded everything, but if we hadn't done that, we wouldn't have learned anything.) The kitchen was full of smoke most of the time, so you might want to open a window and turn off your smoke alarms if you do any of this. (There were no smoke alarms in Oaxaca so this was not a problem there.)
We have yet to make any of this again at home. (We had enough Mexican food on this trip to last several months...) But all of the special ingredients are apparently available in the Mission neighborhood in San Francisco, so some weekend this year, perhaps, we'll make it all again.
Base
Both types of mole use the same base, a non-spicy, nutty-tasting sauce. According to Agustin, this sauce can also be served on its own with rice or chicken as mole almendrado (there are a million variations on mole — many mole almendrado recipes include a type of dried chile pepper called chile ancho).
A note on the proportions: they're very unscientific. Good luck.
In a saute pan, fry the banana and baguette with lots of oil. In a second pan, fry the remaining ingredients until the onions brown. Empty both pans into the blender, cover with chicken broth, add a little water and blend for at least a minute. Place in a sauce pan on stove and bring to boil, then turn off the heat.
Base, aka mole almendrado
Mole negro (also known as mole poblano)
Ingredients: chile huacle negro, pasilla mexicana, mulato, chipotle/meco, red tomatoes, green tomatoes, sugar, chocolate, salt, black pepper, base (above)
Boil a few red tomatoes in water, then blend with a little water. Separately, do the same with a few green tomatoes.
Remove the seeds from the chiles, then roast the seeds and skins without oil in a pan to the point of burning. (Warning: Smoke will fill your kitchen and burn your eyes.) Burn a tortilla over the stove. Add the burnt tortilla, roasted chiles, salt and pepper to the blender. Cover with water and blend at least one minute. Strain the mixture to get rid of pulp.
Add blended red tomatoes and blended green tomatoes to the base, bring to boil, then lower heat, add chiles and stir slowly. Add sugar and chocolate and stir some more. It can reduce for up to a few hours until thick. Serve over your choice of meat (most traditionally chicken or turkey) and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Mole rojo
Chicken topped with mole rojo and mole negro
Ingredients: chile cuajilo, chile ancho rojo, red tomatoes, green tomatoes, sugar, chocolate, salt, black pepper, base (above)
Boil and blend the red and green tomatoes like with mole negro.
De-seed the chiles (the seeds aren't used here, but keep them for something else). Boil the chiles until soft, saute in oil, rinse well then add to blender along with chicken stock and water, and blend.
Add blended red and green tomatoes to base, bring to boil, lower heat, add chiles, stir slowly. Add sugar and chocolate. Stir. It can reduce for up to a few hours until thick. Serve over your choice of meat. Guacamole Obviously there a million ways to make guacamole. This one differs from our personal recipe in that it omits garlic, adds jalapeño and uses lime in place of lemon.
Ingredients: avocado, handful of cilantro, thinly sliced jalapeño pepper, diced medium tomato, small amount of diced white onion, juice of one lime, salt, a little water
Mix the ingredients together with a spoon. Do not puree. (Tip: Keeping the avocado seed in with the guacamole is supposed to keep it from turning brown.) Hot table sauces We made two different types of hot tomato sauces, meant to be placed on the table and added to any number of dishes. You can mix and match the ingredients for different flavor profiles and levels of spiciness.
Hot sauce #1
Ingredients: chile de arbol (dried), miltomates (small green tomatoes, most similar to tomatillos), few slices of white onion, 4-5 small garlic cloves (with skin), pinch of salt, a little water
Blend all the ingredients in a food processor or blender for at least a minute.
Hot sauce #2
Ingredients: fresh jalapeño pepper, tomato, few slices of white onion, 4-5 small garlic cloves (with skin), pinch of salt, a little water
Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender for seven seconds (this one is blended for less time because it includes fresh, not dried, pepper). Tomato sauces Two very simple tomato sauces, but with fresh ingredients, the flavors were delicious. The green sauce is commonly used for tacos and enchiladas; the red for pizza and spaghetti.
Green tomato sauce
Ingredients: miltomates (or tomatillos), chicken broth, ~6 garlic cloves with skin, few slices of white onion, salt
First boil the tomatillos. Add to blender, cover with chicken broth, add remaining ingredients, blend at least a minute.
Red tomato sauce
Ingredients: tomatoes, chicken broth, ~6 garlic cloves with skin, few slices of white onion, salt
First boil the tomatoes. Add to blender, cover with chicken broth, add remaining ingredients, blend at least a minute.
Enchiladas, eggs, etc.
The class focused on teaching us a few basic sauces that are utilized time and again in classic Mexican dishes.
Once we had made our sauces, we whipped up some enchiladas by frying a tortilla, filling it with some sautéed chicken and onion, dipping it in the green or red tomato sauces and then topping with cheese and cream.
Then we made huevos rancheros byfrying eggs, covering them in the green and red tomato sauces and sprinkling with cheese.
Watch the slideshow for a few more photos, including shots from Oaxaca's famous markets. To see the captions, you must view it full-screen and choose "show info".
Enjoy and good luck! And please let us know if you make any of these recipes. - Steph
