Sustainable Substitutions #1: Coffee Grinders

Sustainable Substitutions is a new feature devoted to making small changes in the kitchen to make pie-making more sustainable environmentally, economically and/or enjoyably.

First up: Coffee Grinders. There are pie recipes that call for coffee grounds, and, more importantly, pie making often keeps your pie-maker up late. Fresh ground coffee is enormously better than vacuum-sealed ground, and with this substitution we can extract the full flavor.

The antique grinder on the left was your pie maker's original device, until the frequently small repairs and ~1NPR Morning Edition story's worth of grinding time convinced him to go electric.

Two broken electric grinders later, it became obvious that electric grinding is not a sustainable solution. It turns out to be impossible to repair even a simple malfunction like the inevitable failure of the bushing that held the blade in place. So for want of a $0.10 part, roughly 1kg (2.3lb) of plastic, steel and copper is rendered useless.

The wood, brass and steel manually cranked version is very repairable. Both of those screws are probably replacements, and the entire unit can be dissembled with a simple toolkit. Some replacement parts will probably require custom machining, but nothing on it is so complicated a good art school won't have the right equipment. Additionally, because the distance between the grinding wheel and the wall can be set manually, it's possible to select exactly the size of the average granual. Your pie maker uses this to make a very fine powder for Austrian-style coffee, or a courser grind appropriate for a big mug from a French press.

An added bonus is that "grinding" is exactly what your pie maker does in his favorite non-baking hobby.

Satire, in good taste:

As P&P contemplates how to respond to sublime satire, this is pretty good:



Thanks to my favorite Orthodox family for linking me to Pithless Thoughts, which linked to this. Also, anyone who will be in the DC area around the end of October is welcome to stop by for pie.

In (mild) praise of essentialism

Essentialism in a social context refers to the practice of strongly identifying a person with a particular group. Often the definition of that group's identity is slightly ambiguous and the subject of truly nasty debate within the self-identified community. Is Barack Obama black enough? Too black (or not enough)? Who is a REAL conservative (P&P thinks it's the Tories), and who's just a RINO?

To outsiders, such debates are pedantic or silly at best and downright terrifying at worst. However, there's a deeper issue here that gets lost in our liberal (and I mean Lockean, P&P is very old school) norms of tolerance and liberty. The ability to define oneself as part of a group is absolutely fundamental to many people's happiness. If we can't define the boundaries of a group, does it really exist?

This point struck home for me when a friend declined a dinner invitation. He'd been joining us every month or so after he moved from a place with a very large Jewish community to semi-rural Indiana. There, without the social easy of a large group of that mixed Americana and Judaism fluidly, he had to chose whether to become "more" Jewish or just partake in Amaricana. His choice, and the reason he became the first person to decline one of my pies, was to strengthen the ties to his religious community. I can't begrudge him that, and in fact made a similar choice when my travels found me joining the Catholic minority in one city.

I think that it worthwhile sometimes to take a step back from the normative (classical) liberalism of modern life and consider ourselves as part of larger groups. The TEA Party is trying to do this for economically displaced middle class, primarily white (and thus lacking a strong alternative cultural identity) Americans who now realize that they are getting royally screwed by the system they supported most of their lives. As a social movement, it has a lot in common with other disadvantaged groups that have carved out space for themselves in the political landscape. Glenn Beck now makes millions as a sort of white Al Sharpton.

This is a good thing. When a group finds itself on the short end of changing political and economic conditions, its only hope is to unite and try fight for its interests collectively. The other option is individual repression, despair and even political violence by the voiceless. Americana as a culture is threatened, and while many parts of it are strongly anti-pie, a loud voice for those who are hurt by the changes in modern life is critical to the "security" slice of PMCIN.

So, has this out-of-power group figured out how to define itself? Not yet, and some of its elements are intentionally resisting that. But a definition is emerging (I think), and the sooner the better. Focused anger within the political space is much better than unfocused anger outside of it. As long as we don't abandon the best parts of our American classical liberalism, like the 14th Amendment, our political dialogue is much better for having groups honestly represent their interests collectively. The first step in dialogue is respect, and respecting each other's distinct identities is almost as important as respecting our mutual humanity.

Late Summer Pie

In the late summer in Northern Virginia (hey, it might be its own state someday) peaches and plums are plentiful.

Preheat the oven to 400F

Crust: Basic whole wheat crust, single crust rolled into a 9.5" deep dish pie pan.

Filling:
Heat in a non-reactive pot until reduced by 1/2:
1/2 cup ruby port

Meanwhile, slice into a non-reactive bowl:
4 cups plums
3 cups peaches


Mix in the reduced port and:
1/4 cup tapioca
1/3 cup sugar
juice of one lime

Pour the filling into the crust and bake about 30min. Meanwhile make the biscuit topping by combing in a small bowl:
1 cup flour
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp yogurt


Cut the dairy into the flour until it resembles crumbs or dry biscuit dough. Remove the pie from the oven and quickly spread the topping over it. Return to the oven for 25min or until the juices bubble thickly at the sides.