So the soda making process has began! I'm making 3 different sodas using a couple of different techniques. The first one will be mangosteen flavored with regular soda water without a high sugar content. The seconded will be Yuzu flavored with carbonation from dry active yeast and sugar reactions.  The third will be a candied ginger ale. Hopefully it will be drinkable by the end of the week!




 
  Yuzu!

    So as some of you may know I want to open up my own restaurant thats basically Southern Comfort food with a Molecular twist.  Thats what I cook and thats what I love to eat. But I'm realizing that there is so much southern gastronomy goodness that I haven't exposed myself to. Therefore I've taken it upon myself to learn as much as I can about southern cooking and try to re imagine them  through the lens of modern  culinary techniques.  This is really quite an undertaking but its something I have to do and now is as good a time as any.

     I've also been trying to dive into the world of soda making. I found out yesterday that Goose Island
is making their own line of colas.I'm hoping to make some in the style of the Italians but with my own brewing twist, (yuzu anyone?) The first one will probably be like a yuzu cream sickle or something.

    Anywho, I better get ready for work here in a bit but I should have some photos uploaded here by the end of the day.

So as much as I hate being a trendy yuppy that jumps on the newest piece of technology, I think I am going to have to get the newest iPhone that came out yesterday. See here's the thing. The phone I have now sucks. Like seriously sucks. Like the battery keeps dying and I get no reception kind of sucks. Oh and verizion keeps screwing me over as well. So I was planning on going with ATT at the end of the month. Today I was looking and plans and I realized that they are the main US carrier for apples crazy new phone. So I've been researching all morning and it seems that for all practical purposes the iphone would be a great phone for me to get. So I'm biding my time and waiting for my verizion contract to run out so I can get my new phone! In other news I got heston blumenthal's cookbook called In Search of Perfection. I can't wait to make some of his recipes (see below.) I also got some new brewing magazines that will hopefully inspire me when I make my next brew.

Reformatting pt.2

So as everyone who read my last post knows, I decided to reformat my laptop. Overall the process went very well and now its up and running like a new machine. I decided to dual boot it with Windows xp and Ubuntu 8.04. I've been dabbling in Linux for over a year now and I've decided that Ubuntu is my favorite version of it. With the newest version I have all the applications for school and work that I need as well as some fun toys like image editors, music players, and torrent programs. I would have gone completely over to Linux, but I can't find an open source program for music production that is as good as Ableton Live or Reason. I also use Logos Bible Software for my studies and it doesn't like Ubuntu to much. So I have a small xp partition that I only plan on using for those specific applications.

Indiana, I Just Can't Stand Ya

Ugh,I'm really wishing I was in TN right now. Bree (the awesome girlfriend) is there having a great time with her friends in Nashville and Gatlinburg and I'm incredibly jealous. But I'm already planning on flying there on the 31^st so I'm basically just counting down the days. Waiting is definitely the hardest part.

In Other News

I went to the new brewery that opened in Crown Point last night. I'm definitely not impressed with Carriage Court Pizza which is the restaurant located next door. However, the beer is good, the Brewer was a pretty nice guy, and its a heck of a lot closer than 3 Floyds. It'll probably be my new bar of choice, even though I really didn't have one to speak of before...

I also got a new cook book by British chef Jamie Oliver. Someone left it in one of the hotel rooms at work and my mom found it. The 3 week rule applies in a situation like this and its been 4 weeks without anyone claiming it, so guess who's it is now bitches! Its actually a really awesome cookbook and I can't wait to try the recipes in it.

Well, I'm off to the grocery store and then off to work!