2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 stick butter
2 Tbsp. sugar

Mix together in a bowl with a fork. Press into a 9" spring-form pan so the sides and bottom are covered.

4 8 oz packages cream cheese
4 eggs
1.5 cups sugar
4 Tbsp flour
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup whole milk
16 ounces sour cream

Cream together cream cheese, eggs, and sugar. Add remaining ingredients and mix well until all lumps are gone. Pour into the prepared pan. Place on cookie sheet in a preheated 375 F oven for 1 hour. Turn oven off, prop door open with a wooden spoon and let sit another hour. Refrigerate 12-24 hours. Remove spring pan.

1 12 oz can cherry pie filling

Add filling to top of cake. Serve.

Well, I finally got the hide stretched and hung - after the frame fell apart on me. In retrospect, the mitered joints were a bad idea. Next one I'm cutting lap joints and pegging them instead of biscuited miters. I suspect some of it was it is cool and I underestimated the time the glue needed to set hard.

It's missing a front leg at this point as a certain poodle ripped it off and ate it, fur and all. No apparent ill affects except she's thirsty, which is surprising.  She seems quite proud of herself too. She keeps trying for seconds on that part touching the bottom of the frame.  I gave her a tablespoon of mineral oil to make sure the hair passes okay. Feeding a dog a tablespoon of oil was an experience, to say the least.

It's much more humid out than I expected so hopefully this will dry so I can scrape it before it rots. The sun just came out so I may have a chance. Next time I do this is in the August dry spell or dead of winter. Drying is taking forever.

1/4 pound butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cups molasses
3/4 cup boiling water
2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp powdered ginger (or freshly ground root)

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter and flour a 9" square pan.

Cream butter and sugar together and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs and beat well. Add boiling water to the molasses and blend into flour, baking soda, salt and ginger.  Add this to the first mixture and combine until smooth. Pour into pan and bake 35-45 minutes until a tootpivk comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes before putting on a rack.

Serve with whipped cream.

So the first issue with the hide is to soak it soft and then flesh it. We have a female of about 18 months, so its gonna be thin skinned. We dumped in it water with 50 pounds of salt, 1 pint of PineSol and some vinegar over two days, moving it around until we got it thawed. We then started to dry it out in the backyard, trying to keep Kyli away from it.  It's not a very pretty pelt, which I guess is not a surprise, as they are shedding their winter fur. Texas buffalo don't get great coats anyway as the winter is too mild.

So as it dries, I need to make a frame and string it. I'll have to see if we can as Noah got himself damaged and is out of things for a bit. He's going to be okay but he's not a happy badger right now.

After I get this thing strung up, I need to figure out how to cope with the mangy looking coat. I tried combing it out with the poodle comb, and it isn't loose or detached.  It just looks that way...

So, off to Lowe's for 2 by 4 to make the frame so I can dry scrape this thing.

After picking up the buffalo Monday, and then yesterday having NaTex in Dallas, we decided that we needed to try some today. Just to make sure the stuff haven't spoiled, ya know?

Well, we thawed a nice 2" thick buffalo steak today and rolled in sesame oil before sprinkling it with garlic, cayenne, salt, and black pepper. Grilled on high for 5 minutes a side and then flip back until the center reached 150 F. Simple, fast and tasty.

We served it with pasta and green peas. Lovely. It ran from raw to medium raw with a nice crusty surface. Turns out a 3 pound steak is actually enough to feed these too with leftovers. So Kyli and I have lunch for tomorrow.

Noah, Kyli and I ran up to Muenster tonight to pick up our half-a-buffalo we got from the Rocking H Ranch. That's about 200 pounds of meat at a much cheaper price than hunting one of these beasties or even a couple of deer. For some reason, the bison were not really fond of Kyli watching the calves. She's been known to catch and eat bluejays but buffalo calves are a bit big for her. Kyli wasn't all that fond of the bull who walked over to look at her either. She did the smart thing and hid behind Noah. He wasn't amused.





We also got a frozen buffalo hide that's sitting in a plastic trash can, thawing in a solution of 50 pounds salt, 1 pint Pinesol(tm), water to cover, and a large rock to keep the hide submerged. The recipe for the thawing solution is courtesy of the OSU Ag Extension website. Once thawed, I got to flesh and hang the sucker so I can tan it. I'm leaning toward either a neats foot oil or an alcohol-turpentine cure. (Yes, doing a buffalo hide as my first hide in 30 years is stupid, but I can't fit the danged thing in my freezer.)

will they then shut up? And will the jury of peers mean 12 M.D. Ph.D's or just the lowest common denominator they could find acceptable to the lawyers involved?  Yes I'm being snarky but the idea that a jury of 12 will decide a scientific issue is really worrisome. Science does not involve agreement; it is not what scientist believe or what a jury decides.  It involves testablity and what is real or not.  This is the same stupidity as when some state decided to redefine pi as 3.

"What do they teach in schools these days?" (Editor: You know. Not science or math.)

UPDATE: Link fixed!

Work has got me looking at the construction of solar panels, and I tripped over this. There was an attempt years to make similar style thermal oven for third world use, that like many UN funded projects didn't bother to consider the fine details. You know, little things like poor farming societies eat dinner after the sun is down.

Tonight, I wore my Ph.D robes for the first time* (previously I just wore a suit to them) for Wunpen's graduation and hooding ceremony.  It's always a rush to know you've pass the torch on to the next generation, something I hadn't ever succeeded in doing with martial arts. In a decade, I'll even have grand-students with any luck. Sadly, she leaves next Friday for Thailand.

 

* I never attended my own hooding/commencement ceremony.

ANTEC 08: There are a lot of interesting talks this year but what I found interesting was the shift in the carbon nanotubules from how you make them a few years ago to the problems and challenges of making materials containing them and the effects they have on final properties. A lot of stuff using SPM and AFM too.  Cool stuff.



The picture is of a raven and bear playing lacrosse - I forgot the tribes we have some blood from were found this far west of the NE.  In fact, I think this was once called the Northwest Territories. It was a suprise to see this sitting in the corner of the convention center. Lacrosse is just beginning to make inroads into Texas; its still pretty much a New England sport in most people's minds.  For Ben, we went to Bill Bradley's for the bratwurst served with some local beer I can't pronounce.  It was pretty good. I'll try and get him some of the Ursinger's brats if I can. And a cheesehead hat for his brother - I know he wants one.

On Tuesday, I attended talks on more nano-composites and on polymers from renewable resources. While not getting the attention of ethanol (don't get me started), its nice to see people are making significant inroads into replacing polymers. (I keep telling people polymer and petrochemicals, not fuel, are the scary things, but it's like being Cassandra in Troy.) Later, I got to give out an award to the Composite Division for student research. That's really one of the best parts of the trip.