Fred's Minnesota Blog

It was Fred's birthday this week and we had a small birthday party for him. It was Kate's first attempt at making a pie and she chose pecan. It turned out very well. Fred got a lot of nice presents, too numerous to list.

Fred and Kathleen lighting the candles.

The Birthday Party.

Kate's Pie.

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Fred raking and sucking leaves. We are sorry to see the end of summer but at the same time the fall has certain charm. What we are not looking forward to is the Winter.

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Archibald MacLeish

I speak this poem now with grave and level voice
In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall.
I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall
Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise.
I praise the fall: it is the human season. Now
No more the foreign such does meddle at our earth,
Enforce the green and bring the fallow land to birth,
Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough,
But now in autumn with the black and outcast crows

Share we the spacious world: the whispering year is gone:
There is more room to live now: the once secret dawn
Comes late by daylight and the dark unguarded goes.
Between the mutinous brave burning of the leaves
And winter’s covering of our hears with his deep snow
We are alone: there are no evening birds: we know
The naked moon: the tame stars circle at our eaves.
It is the human season. On this sterile air.
Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.
I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.
I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.

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Ed and Alicia came to the Twin Cities on business this weekend and stayed with us. We had a very enjoyable time with beautiful weather and good company.

On Sunday, they took us to Rush Creek Golf Course for breakfast brunch. It was a very nice meal with beautiful senery and perfect weather.

The Perdon's were the best of house guests.

It was suggested by Dr. Ed that Yiyu lose a couple of pounds. He thinks she will be happier if she is not quite as 'full figured'. We are going to put her on a diet.

# posted by Fred @ 10:59 AM 1 comments

Dinner at Claddagh

We took Gerardo's Mom and sister to see where Kate and Gerardo were married on Sunday afternoon. We had a very pleasant dinner, the server who was with us for the wedding last February came over to say 'hello' and see how Kate and Gerardo liked marriage. They said it was, "OK."

Fred and Kathleen, we were a lot more relaxed this time.

(Gerardo's Mom) Patricia, Gerardo, and Kate

His sister, Gabby

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Paella Dinner

Patricia wanted to show us how to make authentic Paella. We could not get all the sea food but did have mussels, shrimp, and clams. Patricia also put in some pork with the chicken. It was very good.

Everyone helping in the kitchen. We all wanted to see how to cook it.
Everything was cooked separately, then assembled into the Paella.

The three women. Kathleen, Kate and Patricia.

The Paella.


YiYu with a new friend.

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Lawn Work

Fall yard cleaning. Cutting back the bushes in the front. Notice the Clementis plant on the front of the house, before and after. Fred refers to it as Lazarus, because it died when we had it planted by the deck and he saved it from the garbage can. Now it grows too well. Fred is turning into a Minnesotan, notice what he is wearing and it is about 40 degrees outside. Any colder and it would be snowing.

Gerardo's acorn squash, the best crop we have ever had in Minnesota.

A new look at cooking of Dulce de Leche:

Standard Crock-pot method:

Peel off label. Place can in crock-pot an cover completely with hot tap water. Turn crock-pot on high and cook for 3-4 hours making sure can stays completely submerged. Remove can and cool completely before opening. http://hobey.blogspot.com/2005/09/ooey-gooey-goodness.html
New Pressure Cooking Method:

Pressure cooking speeds up the rate of reaction. Using the Arrhenius Equation,

Time(new) = Time(old)/eb(1/T(old, in K) – 1/T(new, in K))

We can determine how much we can shorten the cooking time by raising the temperature.

A typical “b” value in the Arrhenius equation for cooking processes is 10,000 K.

°C = (210– 32)*(5/9) = 98.8
K = 98.8 + 273.15 = 372.4

°C = (250– 32)*(5/9) = 121.1
K = 121.1 + 273.15 = 394.3

Time(new) = 240 min (or 180 min) /e10,000(1/372.4 – 1/394.3)

Time(new) = 54 min. corresponds to 4 hr. cook; 40 min. corresponds to 3 hr. cook.

Cooking time for first trial will be 60 minutes at 250 degrees F, 15 psi steam.

A quick calculation of the pressure inside the can, shows the air pressure will be about 5.5 psi over atmospheric at 250 degrees. I am unsure of the vapor pressure of the milk slurry, but it will be lower than the 15 psi of water. The max pressure over steam pressure then will be 5.5 psi.


Fred starting the pressure cooker.

Can upon removal from pressure cooker, notice slight bludge of can top.

Isn’t science exciting?

Looks good,

Final product is delicious. The next batch I plan to reduce the cooking time to 40 minutes.

The seasons are starting to change up here in Minnesota. We have been having a mixture of cool days then a couple of warm ones. The leaves are beginning to turn colors and fall from the trees. As soon as we have our first frost we will clean the garden and start getting ready for winter. We are shivering already.
One of our fall projects is to redo the wreath on the front door. We changed from the summer flowers to a more fall motif.
Our second project was to visit a apple orchard to pick apples. We chose an orchard by White Bear Lake and it was very busy. They did the pick your own very nicely because they sold bags that you could pick all you wanted (that would fit in the bag). The apples were not very attractive (not eating apples necessarily) but they will be good in apple sauce and pies. From Fred's experience they needed to be sprayed more and the wind storm knocked many of the apples off the trees. Parking in the orchard.

Very busy at the barn.
Fred picking some small apples. Nothing was marked so we are not sure what variety we were picking. We picked a little of everything.
Kathleen holding the bag. ($7 worth) Oh dear, for the apples we threw away in Battle Creek.
Of course we had to find a Vineyard and buy a couple of bottles of wine. The vineyard was part of the orchard complex. The grape vines looked better than the apples trees.
Gerardo's Family finally got here.

His Mother, Patricia, and Sister Gabby.
Fred's friend gave him a cream pie for helping to fix his car, we all enjoyed it.