Rick Wang's Weblog

July 26 to August 28
Days of travel: 34

Connections Costs: $140 ($4/day)
Accommodations Costs: $596 ($17.50/day)
Other Costs: $814 ($24/day)

Total Costs: $1551 ($46/day)

Monthly Burn Rate (30.5 days): $1403/month

Route Map

The budget results were a significant improvement over my 2008 Adventure costs, but not as low as they could have been. $200 for 2 nights in Santa Barbara hurt a lot, as well as $230 for the tent purchased in San Luis Obispo. The trip was a lot of fun, and the detailed notes are kept in a physical journal. My favorite outdoors area was Big Sur, and favorite city was Oakland. Lessons learned: need more quick drying clothes, a touring bike would work better than a mountain bike, north to south is easier than south to north due to prevailing wind, walk-in campsites are a handy and cheaper alternative to hostels, bike-specific maps beat general purpose maps.

After suffering attacks from aphids, earwigs, and earworms, I've decided that this cornfield was done. Along with my parents, we harvested the remaining corn ears, beans, and squash plants. The beans and squash had done generally well, providing great food. On the other hand, the corn ears were almost always half-eaten by bugs or underdeveloped. At the moment of this writing, several corn earworms are in a glass jar outside, awaiting death by sunlight. After the harvesting was done, I hacked away the stalks with my kukri while my dad dug up the brace roots with a shovel. The plot of ground will be allowed to rest for a while and tilled before planting something else.

While I am not a fan of sirloin steak, it is cheap and nice to have once in a while. This piece was marinate in black pepper and olive oil, and cooked with a sprig of rosemary from the garden and generous amounts of additional salt and pepper. It was cooked on maximum heat on both sides, and produced an average steak that was nicely pink on the inside. The rosemary flavor was great.

Needing to use up the remainder of the $2 bottle of red wine, I decided to marinate a couple pieces of chuck roast with the wine and dried thyme. After a couple hours marinating, the meat and marinade were put in a clay put with some tomato chunks and garlic. I skipped the searing step of braising for simplicity. The roast was then cooked for around 6 hours over warm heat to make the meat fork-tender. I added some salt near the end while reducing the liquid. Both the meat and the broth tasted great despite how it looks in the picture!

Participants: 4 (group led by Lou)
Location: SBNF/ANF Border Area, San Gabriel Mountains, CA, USA
Distance: approx 16 mi r/t
Elevation: 6160' (Manker Flats Trailhead), 10064' (Mt Baldy), 9575' (Dawson Peak), 9648' (Pine Mountain)
Terrain: Mountain, Shrubland, Forest

Photos below courtesy of Ellen:

I needed some food for my hike tomorrow, and had not baked in a while, so I decided to try something different. I mixed approximately 50/50 all purpose and whole wheat flour, salt, yeast, olive oil, and kneaded in some chopped medjool dates. Again, I had some difficulty getting a windowpane, but the dough had risen well anyways. I flattened out the dough into a disc before proofing and made decorative radial indentations. It looked neat after the proof and oven spring. The bread was nicely moist at first, but after a couple of days it became very dry.

I decided to take another try at a slow cooked roast beef by cooking one overnight. The goal was to get the red interior that is seen in deli roast beef. I seasoned the tri tip roast and stuck it into a tagine. I started at 300F, and lowered it to 210F after 15 minutes. I left it on overnight too long, for around 10 hours. The result was well done and tender, but not red or even pink on the inside. Nevertheless it tasted great. It was also fun using the sage grown from the garden.

Motivated by the picture on the calendar from Hannamchain "Market World", the nearby Korean market, I decided to try making samgyeopsal myself. I loosely followed this recipe from Maangchi, omitting some of the recipes, and messing up on the various amounts of ingredients, but mostly turned out well. A serious problem was that the slices of pork belly had some bone pieces in them, so they could not be wrapped into lettuce and eaten in one bite. Instead, I used a fork to eat them on a plate with rice. I also messed up on the pajori, adding way too much soy sauce and causing the green onions to shrink as a result. In the end, I thought that the pajori was not necessary, and the ssamjang alone provided plenty of flavor. The grease splatter form cooking was unbelievable, thankfully the cooking was done outside. Nevertheless, I had some grease splatter onto my glasses as I was turning the meat. Overall, I enjoyed the food and look forward to eating the same dish in a Korean restaurant sometime for comparison.

I followed Peter Reinhart's recipe for french bread, which consists of a 2 day process: first day with a pre-ferment and the actual baking on the second day. I somehow ended up with a dough too stiff, and could not pass the windowpane test. This is probably due to the weather being hot and dry; I should have added more water to get it tacky. However, the bread rose well, and the shaping was easier with the firmer dough. The pan wasn't as long as I would have liked, so I actually had to compress the first baguette after rolling it out. They baked for about 25 minutes at 450F, and the resulting breads tasted great. I'm looking forward to pairing the breads with some cheese and wine for full enjoyment.

I'll admit, I had my doubts about trying this recipe at first, but the highly rated comments and hot weather convinced me to give it a go. This recipe was linked to me over IRC in the #estiah channel some time ago, and I kept putting it off. Today, I made this with a few modifications: (1) cayenne pepper powder instead of serrano chile, (2) omitted vinegar and onions, (3) dill seed instead of fresh dill, (4) lack of feta cheese for garnish. While the disgustingly bright orange looks like either bug blood or puke, or some combination of the two, it tasted really good. Watermelon and tomato dominated the flavor, with the olive oil providing something of a smoothing effect while the cayenne gave it a little bit of kick. It was certainly refreshing!

Participants: 3 (led by Lou)
Location: San Bernardino National Forest, San Gabriel Mountains, CA, USA
Distance: 17 mi (hike)
Elevation: 3980' (Middle Fork Trailhead), 7555' (Icehouse Saddle), 8859' (Cucamonga Peak)
Terrain: Mountain, Forest, River, Shrubland

I followed the Condensed Milk Fudge recipe from Cooking For Engineers, adding crushed walnuts during the extra mix-ins step. It turned out rather well, surprisingly sweet for not having added any extra sugar. This recipe is straightforward and yields great results.

I noticed today for the first time that my corn plants started developing silks. As a result, I took some photos and then ate one of the baby corns. It tasted rather boring and I resolved to wait for full growth before harvesting any more. The winding bean plants are visible in the two pictures of the baby corn ears, and the squash plants are visible at the bottom of the three sisters picture. The pollen from the tassels (male flowers) look like small caterpillars or insect eggs, making it somewhat harder to bug hunt among the plants.