Cardboard boats

Thanks to an article in Raleigh's News & Observer, we recently learned that the town of Smithfield, NC, would be inaugurating its new boat launch with a cardboard boat race. Boats and oars were to be made of nothing more than corrugated cardboard, duct tape, and glue, and each boat would be piloted down the Neuse River by a two-person team. What better project could there be to keep young engineering minds sharp over summer break? With barely one week to spare, E's thumbs sprang into action, texting a recruitment message to his high school robotics club and a few other friends. We solicited the neighborhood email list for cardboard, and received abundant donations. The team met for the first time the Saturday before the race, and hit the ground running.

They continued to meet nightly, their prototypes gradually emerging into an unconventional but plausible design, their industrious philosophy best encapsulated by the question, "Why draw on millennia of accumulated cultural knowledge when you can just wing it instead?"

By Friday afternoon, we still had so much cardboard on the front and back porches and in the living room that S and I wondered out loud whether we should build a boat ourselves. E's immediate response was "YES! DO IT! That would be so excellent!" So S and I skipped out early from a friend's party, drew on millennia of accumulated cultural knowledge, and built our own boat.

Early the next morning, we loaded the auspiciously named S.S. S.O.S. and Das Boot onto our trailer and headed to Smithfield.

Once in Smithfield, we registered our vessels and received copies of the rules. My favorite rule--the one that best illustrated the organizers' confidence in the success of everyone's efforts--was, "Your boat must have at least 2 sides remaining at the finish line to still be considered a boat. In other words, you can't just be hanging onto a piece of cardboard."

Many more boats entered the competition than competitors or organizers were expecting--33 in all. The rules didn't say anything about paint, so it didn't occur to us to decorate our boats, but many teams went all out.

BLR Hotrods came in first and also won the Best Decorated Boat prize

The most elegant boat was designed by a group of friends who had majored in engineering and design at NCSU, so naturally we dragged the rising seniors of Team S.S S.O.S. into a conversation with them.

Expedited Shipping came in 2nd

The SS S.O.S. flew a banner of black Sharpie calculations emblazoned on a field of unbleached-cardboard brown.

All pilots were required to wear personal flotation devices. Can you spot them in the photo?

The new boat launch was quite nice...

The regatta was supported by multiple rescue crews from Smithfield and beyond. This meant that anyone from the age of 8 to 88 could pilot a boat, sink, and be quickly plucked from the delightfully temperate leisurely flowing river raging waters. Boats entered the water one by one, were accompanied downstream by a rescue boat, and met at the finish line under the bridge by volunteers standing waist-deep in the water. The next boat would launch as soon as the wake from the returning rescue boat dissipated.

The SS S.O.S. queued up relatively early in the race.

Alas, the front of the SS S.O.S. was more buoyant than anticipated, and the boat began to take on water in back. The valiant pilots attempted to regain control of the ship, but it flooded beyond recovery--although, perhaps to its credit, not dramatically enough to win the Titanic Award for Most Memorable Sinking. The pilots were pulled from the water and brought to shore in the rescue craft. Happily, this will give them material for their college-application essays. The team is already planning how to up the drama to win the Titanic Award next year. 

Das Boot fared somewhat better.

Tau Day, peaches, and paleo

Tau Day (6.28) was this past Thursday, which required baking pies. I went around in circles on how many to make, because I couldn't decide whether to represent tau with one or two pies--would two pies be four pi, or two tau, or what? I ended up making three pies/three tau/six pi, then called for help to eat them. One friend wanted to come a fashionable 6.283185307179586476925286766559 minutes late, but he was off by a factor of e.

I made chocolate cream pie, blueberry pie, and peach custard pie. N thumbs up.

The chocolate cream pie filling was adapted from here, using two 70% dark chocolate bars and reducing the sugar a bit. Yum.

The blueberry pie is my mom's recipe, made with freshly picked farm-share berries: 1/3 pie volume fresh blueberries, add a little water and sugar; bring to boil, add lemon juice to taste, then add some cornstarch in water to thicken; remove from heat, add 2/3 pie volume fresh blueberries, dump in prebaked crust. Yum.

The cream of the crop was the peach custard pie--a last-minute entry made from this recipe. I used Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, 4 egg yolks instead of 3, chopped candied ginger instead of cinnamon (not because I didn't have any cinnamon, but because ginger is the absolute most appropriate spice for peaches), and two layers of peaches instead of one, because four medium sliced peaches wouldn't fit in a single overlapping layer. I used one ripe peach and three crunchy peaches (thus my hesitation), because that's all that was available from OUR VERY OWN BACKYARD PEACH TREE (screw hesitation).

We bought the tree as a sapling three years ago at Costco. A friend asked what variety of peach we got, and all I could tell her was Kirkland.

This is the first year the tree has borne fruit that has survived into the summer. There were so many peaches on one branch that their weight snapped the branch.

Our neighbor J warned us to beware of local fauna getting to the peaches before we could. When I checked on the tree on Thursday, I saw this:

so I picked these:

I like that I can see wee tooth marks in the nibbled peach, and I like thinking about a squirrel (or raccoon?) sitting in the tree enjoying fruit, or having a peach party with its buddies. Peaches are so much tastier than acorns or compost; imagine the revelry! Nonetheless, a friend has offered to lend me her slingshot and arsenal of dried chickpeas.

The Tau Day pies left me with a bunch of leftover egg whites. Usually I'd make an angel food cake or meringues, but it was too humid for the latter, and I wanted to try something new. Googling yielded dozens of websites that recommended turning them into two-ingredient "Paleo" banana egg-white pancakes. "You'll never believe how good these are!," recipe blog authors joyfully claim--recipe blog writers who care about fitness and body image and, I am convinced, have tastebuds numbed by years of eating protein powder just like our prehistoric ancestors never did. So as a public service announcement, I offer the following observations:

1. These pancakes are not anything any sane paleohuman would have ever cooked, because no one who had prehistoric bananas and chicken eggs around in the same place at the same time would have sacrificed either for these.

2. Banana egg-white pancakes are gross. Do not eat them.

3. Re. optional toppings: what kind of trade routes and prehistoric succulent refineries do Paleo fans think would have ever put bananas, agave syrup, and peanut butter in the same vicinity? Oy.

4. See #2.

Next time, angel food cake.

The Great Fish Tank Crisis of 2018

Readers who have been following this blog for a while might remember The Great Ice Storm of '02 and The Great 2010 Fish Tank Catastrophe. What these events have in common--along with most other snow storms and home calamities--is that S is out of town for them.

Today, S is here:

Scenic Les Diablerets, Switzerland! What a lovely place for an academic conference, with free time scheduled in for hiking and biking. When the conference ends, S will spend several days biking from Les Diablerets to Bavaria, where he'll spend a week visiting his mom. Fifteen days from now, he'll fly home.

The timing could thus not be any better for The Great Fish Tank Crisis of 2018 to commence.

Yesterday, E and I noticed that the fish tank filter spray bar was making a lot of noise. This happens when enough water evaporates that the spray bar is no longer under water, creating a fountain as the filtered water returns to the tank; and it was odd, given that S had recently replenished the tank.

This morning, as E and I were rushing out the door, we noticed the noise was even louder. How odd that another inch of water could have evaporated so quickly out of the 45-gallon tank. Then we noticed the water seeping out of the bottom of the tank, meandering down--a drip here, a rivulet there--into the expanding puddle on the floor below. I looked at the fish; the fish looked at me. And then, with fingers crossed that the tank would not burst in the next 20 minutes, E drove us to his job (he's still 8 practice hours and 2.5 months away from getting his driver's license) while I texted S in a panic.

The fish tank and its accompanying geekery are S's deal. I know about as much about maintaining the tank as he knows about making pottery--which is to say, usually enough, but not much when the clock is ticking. For example, I know how to feed the fish, and how to add tea-tree oil if someone takes a bite out of someone else's tail, and how to pull out and rinse off the filter, just as S knows how to appreciate a form and fill a handmade bowl with salad, and how to blow into a chickarina butt to make music. He doesn't know how to throw a pot or load a kiln under time pressure, just as I don't know how to stop a tank from emptying out onto the floor or how to set up a hospital tank and relocate 25 living fish into it. (Yes, S guided me through the Great 2010 Fish Tank Catastrophe over the telephone--at 3 a.m., Germany time--but in that case there were, alas, but two survivors to relocate, and the tank wasn't threatening to burst.)

Thankfully, our neighbor R was available and came to the rescue, with S checking in periodically by phone from his scenic bike ride near Les Diablerets. (The above photos were taken at each phone-call stop.) All fish have been transferred to the hospital tank in the kitchen, including the powerful giant plecostomus that resisted netting and that R consequently carried by its tail through the dining room; all plants have been transferred to a second spare tank and bucket; and enough tank water was salvaged to keep everyone healthy and happy through a water change or two. So that E and I don't have to enjoy the scent of decaying fish poop for two weeks, R and I scooped all the gravel out of the tank, carried it outside, rinsed it off, and spread it on cardboard on the porch to dry, and then we carried the tank outside and R rinsed that too. Then we pulled the fish tank stand away from the living room wall, so the floorboards will have a chance to dry out and hopefully unbuckle.

And then peace descended upon the house once more. When S returns, he can repair and reassemble the tank, and it will be ready for a brand new crisis the next time he goes out of town.

From less troubled times:

About that last blog post...

I'm in NC, and S just phoned from Germany to say his mom really liked the idea of that lemon cake we made, so could I give him the recipe; and I told him where to find the recipe and didn't even think to say "WTF dude. PIE. It's called PIE." Sigh.

Coming to terms: Torte, Kuchen, and pie

Big news: after 29 years of loving S and learning about him and Deutsche Kultur, I finally understand the difference between Torte and Kuchen, and why certain Germans insist on calling American pie Kuchen (even though they shouldn't).

The epiphany actually came last July, while we were visiting H in Steinebach. I was too busy hiking to blog then, but we finally had an opportunity to take up the question again this past Sunday, when we hosted Kaffee und Kuchen [und Torte und pie] for the neighbors on our block. Guests arrived at 3:45 p.m. We defined terms at 4:00 p.m., then ate the evidence.

Distinguishing Torte from Kuchen: an introduction

We started baking on Saturday afternoon. I asked S if he had a good recipe for Biskuitteig (no, not biscuit dough--sponge cake). He responded, "What are you making? Kuchenboden oder Tortenboden?"

Kuchenboden is cake base (literally, cake floor); Tortenboden is torte floor. Kuchenboden is often a layer of Murbeteig--shortbread dough--topped with a layer of Biskuitteig--sponge cake batter. In Obstkuchen, that Kuchenboden is topped with delectable fruit, often with pectin or gelatin or melted jam on top of the whole shebang to make it shiny.

Here are two photos of non-shiny Obstkuchen I made last summer in Steinebach. There's a layer of vanilla pudding between the cakes and the fruit, and maybe a thin layer of jam too, but I can't remember. There is not any Murbeteig under either Biskuit, but they're both clearly still Obstkuchen.

Thus our definition of Kuchen begins with Obsthkuchen. You use Kuchenboden for Obstkuchen.

Tortenboden, in contrast, is the Biskuit that you would put at the bottom of a Torte--and in the middle of Torte, as many times as you want, and on the top of Torte, if you want it there too. That is what make Tortenboden fundamentally different from Kuchenboden. (If you are thinking that the big difference is Murbeteig, think again; our Bavarian Kochbuch recommends Murbeteig under both Kuchen and Torten.)

Torte is almost always made with layers of sponge cake, with filling in between and optional stuff on top. Kuchen is just one layer of cake--sponge cake if you want, but any other kind of cake is fine too, including Murbeteig all by itself--with optional stuff on top.

Did you catch that?

Torte: layers of cake with stuff in between and optional stuff on top.
Kuchen: one layer of cake with optional stuff on top. 

In between, Torte. On top, Kuchen.

For Americans, layers of cake with stuff in between is called "layer cake." A layer of cake with stuff on top is also cake. It's all cake. Torte is fancy cake.

So in the context of making Obstkuchen and Torte, the question "Kuchenboden oder Tortenboden" is a weird cultural thing--a sort of cake phoneme--because the cake parts of both Böden are THE SAME THING. Bake a batch of Biskuitteig for Obstkuchen, and voilà (or schau hier): Kuchenboden. Layer those babies, and voilà/schau hier: Tortenboden. Indeed, the recipe we eventually chose for the Kuchen describes the result as Luftigt-leichter Kuchen, perfekt für Torten--"light-as-air cake, perfect for Torte."

I double checked with S. "Did you really say 'Kuchenboden oder Tortenboden'?" "Yes," he said, "because they're different."

Perhaps he was thinking ahead to the Nusstorte (nut torte) I was going to bake. While you probably wouldn't add nuts to Biskuitteig for Obstkuchen, they're certainly fair game in plain ol' non-Obst Kuchen (which remains Kuchen forever and a day unless you layer it--then BAM, Torte).

Here's a photo of a hazelnut-almond Torte I made in Steinebach last summer (and a photo of H helping). The four layers were laced with Kirschwasser and filled with cherry jam, chocolate cream, and sour cherries, then covered with more chocolate cream.

Exceptions to the rules

Rules wouldn't be rules if there weren't exceptions. Here are four:

1. Tiny Obstkuchen are called Obsttörtchen, because why the hell not? The -chen ending is a diminutive suffix--little fruit tortelets--and because adding -chen changes the German o to an ö, let's change the vowel in English too and call them tartlets. This is allowed only because they're cute, and probably necessary because Obstkuchenchen is too hard to say (but Obstkuchlein isn't, and it's not like being difficult to pronounce stops other German words from existing). Note that chen in Kuchen is not diminutive--it's Kuch-en, not Ku-chen. I'm going to take a stab at a pun by observing that a diminutive cow might be a Kuhchen--but no German would ever pronounce Kuchen (coo-hen) and Kuhchen (coo-hyen) the same way, so no German would ever find that pun remotely funny.


2. Linzertorte, already controversial in its own right, is actually Kuchen, according to the in between / on top rule. It's also Kuchen according to the Torte-is-usually-sponge-cake rule. It made me very happy to discover, browsing through the index of our Bavarian Kochbuch, that the Bible of Bavarian cooking calls it Linzerkuchen.


3. Sometimes Kuchen can have an extra layer of Teig on top--e.g. a layer of Murbeteig on the bottom, with apples on top, and then another layer of Murbeteig on top of that. This is called gedeckter Apfelkuchen--covered apple cake--rather than Apfeltorte, because it lacks the sponge cake that is essential for all Torte (except Linzertorte, which is really a gedeckter Kuchen, and Obsttörtchen, which are diminutive.) I hope you are following the logic here.


4. Finally, S says there is Bodenlose Kaesekuchen--bottomless cheesecake--which, as you might guess, has no base layer of cake and is entirely made of the optional stuff on top. To confirm, we looked it up in the Kochbuch, where it is called Quarktorte ohne Boden--cheese TORTE without bottom. S says "this is a dumb cookbook."

Why certain Germans insist on calling pie "Kuchen"

Pie has its very own word in English, because unlike Torte and Kuchen, pie is NOT cake. Even assuming all pies had double crusts--which they don't--pie is NOT gedeckter Kuchen, because pie crust is neither cake nor shortbread.

Pie does consist of a base layer of non-sponge flour-based dough, with stuff on top, so it is more akin to Kuchen than to Torte--but that does not make pie "cake" any more than saying humans are "birds" because humans are more akin to birds than to boulders. If German can borrow words like Spaghetti, Toast, and Computer from other languages, it can borrow Pei.

One more rule

Our Bavarian neighbor F arrived on Sunday eager to talk definitions. He suggested that Torte filling almost always involves cream. This would explain why gedeckte Apfelkuchen can never be Torte, even though it's layered. It might squeak past the "usually sponge cake" rule, but the lack of cream keeps it out of the realm of Torte. This might also explain why bottomless cheesecake might be considered Torte, given the creamy dairy content.

Well, you might think that. But if you Google gedeckte Apfe..., oh dear: the search brings up both Apfelkuchen and Apfeltorte, and the photos look identical. To that, we say, "perhaps it's a regional difference" (which is our way of saying "uncle! We give up!").

Test your understanding

After lengthy discussion and Q&A with our neighbors, we gave them a quiz. Can you tell what's what? Answers and recipes are below.

A (left); B (right)

C

D

E

Answers:
A: Pie. This is pie. It is not cake. It is pie.
B: Obstkuchen.
C: Pie. Why is this so difficult for you?
D: Obstkuchen.
E: Trick question. There's visible cream and there's presumably cake underneath that, but you can't tell if it's Torte or Kuchen without cutting it open. But by process of elimination in this particular context, you know it has to be Torte. (If this question were on the ACT/SAT, the test-writers would call Torte the "best answer," which would annoy teens who understand nuance and complexity.)

The sacrifices we make for the sake of cultural understanding

Another view of the sacrifices we make

Aha! Layers! Torte!

Appendix: Recipes

We had a gluten-intolerant guest, so we made everything gluten-free. We used gluten-free flour for pie A and Obstkuchen; we purchased gluten-free pie crusts for the pies; and we used ground hazelnuts and no flour in the Nusstorte.

A. The recipe for this lemon custard pie is here. Until last year, it was the only lemon custard pie I had ever made (and I had only made it once.) It's silky-creamy and lemony-tart, with a nice lightness.

B and D: Here's the Biskuitteig recipe I used for the Obstkuchen. This recipe is enough for two Obstkuchen: bake all of the batter in one springform pan and then slice it in half to make two discs. The recipe calls for Speisestärke (starch). In Germany, that would be potato starch. We used cornstarch, but next time I'd probably just add a little more flour. We thought the cake was too sweet, so next time we'll reduce the sugar. S and E were in charge of the topping: a thin layer of jam, a layer of vanilla pudding, artfully arranged fruit, and a pectin glaze on top.

C. Oh my. Oh oh my. This is "Shaker Lemon Pie." Images kept popping up when I was trying to locate the recipe for pie A. Shaker Lemon Pie is stunningly beautiful, startlingly delicious, and super tart--but beware the sugar high. I found assorted recipes online and combined them into this: 5 unpeeled organic lemons (recipes ranged from 2 large to 6 small; some specified Meyer lemons, but we used Eurekas), sliced very thinly with a mandoline, and seeds picked out; toss gently with 1.75 c. sugar, and macerate until sugar dissolves (this takes only a few hours--recipes all said 24-hours or overnight). Stir in four beaten eggs and pour into an unbaked pie crust. (A few recipes said pre-baked. We tried pre-baking the gluten-free crust and it cracked, so that the filling oozed under the crust and glued parts of the crust to the pan. We didn't pre-bake the crust for A and it tasted fine, so next time we'll skip the pre-baking.) Bake at 325^oF for 50-60 minutes. (Recipes said 450^oF for 15 minutes and then 375^oF for 20 minutes, but we had another pie to bake at the same time that required gentler heat. Slow baking worked beautifully.)

D. See B.

E. Here's my version of Nusstorte, adapted and honed over several years from a base recipe by H. Despite all the steps, it's easy to make if you have an electric beater.