Adventures of a tribal dancer...

We're in the thick of it now. It's officially Thanksgiving week, which means my counters and fridge are overflowing with ingredients, ready to tackle the mountain of dishes I plan to cook up this week, including all the necessary ingredients to make and freeze some leftover turkey pot pies.

Despite *Science telling us otherwise, our favorite has continued to be the Alton Brown wet brine. We have made many birds many ways in our past 21 Thanksgivings as a couple, including the pre-brining years, dry brines and wet brines of various ilk, the miserably attempted smoked year (threw the whole thing out it was so bad), the amazing sous vide year, and various combos of whole, pieced, and spatchcocked.

Every year we don't make the Alton bird, we regret it. We go a couple years without it, trying new ways, then do the Alton wet brine and go "yeah, this is the best for us." We experimented the last two years, and had resolved to do the Alton method this year--our first in the new house. But never content to Just Do The Thing Already, I had a thought...

We loved the meat of Alton's wet brine, but preferred the flavor and texture of the skin in the dry brine (not by much, but enough to notice). Could they work together? If we wet brine for 24 hr+ , then do an overnight light dry brine (with maybe some herbs?), to dry out the skin a bit and add flavor there, would that work? I can't imagine 8 hours in the fridge could undo all the moisture gains of the 24 hr+, but it would most certainly help the skin to dry and flavor up a bit more before roasting, right? Would it be TOO salty?

I can't find anyone talking about this, so probably this is a Useless Idea, but now I kinda wanna try it.

Also, I will be spatchcocking again, putting aromatics in a little foil nest under the center of the bird and a ring of stuffing around the outside. This is a method I developed for myself years ago when I discovered spatchcocking of poultry generally, and as well wanted turkey drippings to still flavor the stuffing without the food-borne illness concerns of stuffing a whole bird.

Photo of me with one of my early very successful turkey attempts! 2005?

Here's 2020, spatchcocked goodness:

Video of Alton's brine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKr1rByVVCI

Written recipe:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/good-eats-roast-turkey-recipe-1950271

* Kenji throwing down the science that supposedly proves me wrong. But you can't argue with our taste buds, Kenji!! https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-the-truth-about-brining-turkey-thanksgiving

halloween party

Halloween 2021 Debrief - Musings on a Magic Night

by Shay Moore The TribalDancer Monday, November 01, 2021

Musings on last night:

Elsa and I discussing how we must be family, seeing as Chris and I were Ice King and Queen.

Dual ninjas showing off their light up swords with "ninja poses" they had practiced at home for weeks.

The neighbor who said while riding home with his stoic friend, who doesn't normally react to much of anything, literally screeched his car to a halt and threw it into reverse the first time he drove past the graveyard, and seemed awed and kinda gushed about how great it was. Neighbor said he was pretty sure he hadn't seen this guy react that way to anything in the time he's known him.

The several tween DIY Cruellas throughout the night, who made their own black and white fashion statements. No purchased costumes for them, they created their own outfits, inspired by the new movie. I wish I'd had an ounce of that talent for clothing as a kid. I was so impressed!

Kids politely asking if they could take TWO pieces of tiny candy.

The kid who didn't ask about multiple candy, but clearly seemed to have been told by his parents he could only take with one hand. So he was trying to grab as much with just the one hand, jamming his fist full of candy, then using extended fingers like pinchers to try and snag one. extra. piece.

Kids who forgot to say thank you, and unprompted by parents, ran back to make sure they thanked us before moving on.

My step-sister Destiny Stevenson coming by and spending hours by the fire chatting and enjoying the energy and good company.

Adults who shared in the adult drinks we had on hand, then came back down the street with green jello shots in exchange. (One of them had a candy eyeball in it!)

Guy across the street yelling, "If you did this your FIRST year, I can't wait to see YEAR TWO! I'll be watching for you guys next year!"

The little boy who, completely awestruck, asked us how the candles were just FLOATING there. Chris and I in unison reply with, "MAGIC!" From a distance at the sidewalk, a maybe 6 year old little girl yells, in an exasperated tone usually reserved for parents tired of explaining something repeatedly, "THEY'RE ON WIRES!" (Little guy mumbles as he walks away, "But I don't SEE any wires...")

The precocious Paw Patroller who sat by the fire with the adults and chatted them up, then put on a firm no-face when Mom asked if she wanted to keep trick or treating. So Dad stayed to visit a while with us so their daughter could hang out by the fire with the adults a little while.

Adults asking us if we will maybe please keep the skeleton up all year and dress him up. We said we were considering it, but wondered if it would take away the magic of the skeleton for Halloween. Emphatic NOs from all we asked about that. They want him to stay.

Our next door neighbors throwing a pretty epic kid party in their yard, because they wanted their grand finale to be at our house. They walked the neighborhood as a big group of like 12 kids and their parents, then finished the night at our place getting treats and drinks.

Neighbors introducing themselves and telling us how for weeks their routine has been to walk or drive out of their way every day after school to see the graveyard and the skeleton. "We live in the other direction, but we come 5 blocks this way to drive by every day."

Despite the yard being the main focus, getting to chat up neighbors who wanted to hear all about the new house. I love talking about SIPs, green building technology, thermal bridging, PassiveHouse standards, blower door tests... "Are you an engineer?!" No ma'am/sir; just really like learning stuff.

Discussing what the skeleton should be named with a group of neighbors. Kevin? Steve? Or maybe Roger. "He reminds me of an old manager of mine named Roger." I have so many questions.

Two friends I pretty much only see on FB any more coming out of their way to see the display and visit (was great to see you guys, Kathryn Mensinger and Janine Jones).

THE WEATHER BEING PERFECT. Like seriously. Some dear friends of ours brought their littles over in the afternoon for a visit and photo op with Skellie, and we hung out a couple hours on the deck in the warm sunshine on a clear, crisp fall day. I don't remember the last time Halloween had such glorious weather!

Doing all this with my best friend, who is grinning from ear to ear all night, house proud, haunt proud, husband proud.

Everything smells like woodsmoke, I sound like an old trucker, and am tired and headachey this morning, and I couldn't be happier.

(PS Chris has already sent me multiple photos of ideas for how to dress up Skellie for Christmas. Also, I didn't get nearly enough photos!)

home decor new home

The Bar Has Landed

by Shay Moore The TribalDancer Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Some of you know the saga of the bar, but for those who don't:

Temple Billiards

This is a vintage soda fountain, that was later used in a speakeasy in Portland in the teens/20's. It was then bought by a man named Alex, who owned Temple Billiards in Pioneer Square. He used it as the bar at Temple, which was the local watering hole for early Seattle startups in the area. It is where Chris and I met for the first time, and where we hosted our Seattle wedding reception. Skip to some years later. Chris friend Rolando bought the bar from Alex, and wanted to remodel the place. They were planning to get rid of it, Chris asked Rolly if he could buy it off him, to preserve "the place we met". He sold it to Chris at a good price, and two giant Samoan men moved it into our garage, knowing we couldn't install it in our house at the time. But we planned to move after maybe 5 years to a larger house that it could go in. And we knew we'd be building our forever house someday to move it for its final home.

Sad, lonely garage life.

That was almost 20 years ago. We never did get to do that second, interim move. So It's been sitting in our garage in our old house waiting for a future home we could install it in. It has had rats make a home under it. It has collected epic amounts of dust. In the last year, Chris undertook some restorative work to the marble bar top, which had been stained deeply from use as a wet bar for so many years.

When we started designing our home, this was a piece we told them absolutely had to go someplace prominent. The architect came up with the idea of giving it pride of place, and created a niche in the great room for it to sit in. There is a bump out on the side of our house for it, so the physical structure of our home literally flows around it.

Several weeks ago our electrician completely rewired a majority of the lighting, from cloth-wrapped wire/tube wiring. Yesterday they designed a mounting system/cleat for it, and today five guys showed up to mount it and secure it, and finally hard wire the new lights behind the stained glass to the switch (LED strip lights replaced the last "upgrade" to fluorescents!).

Th vintage marble slays me every time.

The bar itself has huge slabs of uninterrupted vintage marble on the front side, and cabinets on the back side. We didn't want either to live against a wall the rest of its life, so I conceived of a caster set up where it could be rolled out for parties and used as an actual bar if we wanted to, and let the marble see the light of day from time to time. Today, our builder and his friend who is a metal fabricator came up with a final design for that, and will begin building a steel tray the bar will sit on, and can be safely wheeled around. It is temporarily on heavy-duty furniture dollies and a piece of plywood, so that's why it already seems to be "on wheels".

Oh and get this. I tell our metal fabricator where it came from. He says, "I know Alex. We go way back. I'm gonna text him a photo and tell him I'm working on it." He also knows Rolly, our friend and the current owner of Temple. Small city. He is also quite a Renaissance man, has his own certified Italian pizza joint in West Seattle, as a musician his band opened for many local famous bands in his day (opened for Pearl Jam before they were Pearl Jam, opened for Alice in Chains, etc), was a tour manager for Neil Young for years, and had lots of great stories to share today. But I digress.

Anyway, this is a HUGE milestone for us, not just in this house build, but in the life of our beautiful bar. She will need some TLC and cleaning up, and still needs some more rewiring. The brass leaf motifs at the top underside of the mirror there are more lights. Rolly had a Seattle glass gallery create custom tulip shaped shades which go in there, in the same colors as the vintage stained glass already on the bar. We're moving toward seeing it in its full glory, and we're very excited. Enjoy some photos of the process of getting it up there. And here is a link to the video of them lifting it into place. A real nail-biter!!