Here are a few photos from the See Jane Run Sprint Triathlon at Shadow Cliffs Regional Recreation Area on October 5th, 2013 in Pleasanton, CA
2013 See Jane Run Triathlon
Protected: See Jane Run Triathlon 2013
Protected: Ritual Coffee Roasters: Eat Real Festival 2013
Protected: Blue Bottle Coffee at Eat Real Fest 2013
Other things you might have missed at Eat Real Fest 2013
Aside from all of the coffee and the steer butchery, there were many other things to enjoy at Eat Real Festival 2013.
A refreshing gimlet:
A bourbon tasting by Four Roses: 
Demonstrations by Oakland Chefs: Here is Preeti Mistry of Juhu Beach Club:
She did a cooking demo and hosted a Q&A with audience members:
The Oaklandish van was there:
And I rounded out the evening with some bread pudding from the Old World Food Truck.
Flying Knives Steer Butchery Competition at the 2013 Eat Real Festival
Danny Johnson of Taylor’s Market in Sacramento along with Paul Carras and Mitch Lind defeated Dave the Butcher’s Marina Meats team and won the 2013 Flying Knives Steer Butchery Competition at Oakland’s 2013 Eat Real Festival.
Before the competition, the emcee (Anya Fernald), judges and participants shared some Four Roses bourbon to get warmed up.
The cow quarters were hung on meat hooks prior to the countdown to the start:
Dave the Butcher, a crowd favorite, offered his commentary as he prepared some cuts.
The Taylor’s Market team quietly worked together.
Danny Johnson on the hacksaw:
Dave the Butcher cheeses for the camera. “I’ve done this before.”
A young fan inspects the cuts of beef in front of him:
Anya talks things over with a judge:
Trimmings.
Rump roast:
Anya did an excellent job of explaining to the crowd what was happening on the butcher tables in front of them.
You may have noticed that the perennial winners, the Yedra Brothers, were not competing this year. They agreed to come back as judges and let another team take the prize.
Prizes. Trophies and Four Roses Small Batch.
The Yedra brothers take a look at what’s on the table:
Hacksaw to the femur:
Miguel Yedra, judging:
Last year, the Yedra brothers set the precedent of labeling and garnishing the final cuts.
Dave explains to the judges what his team did.
Danny explains his side of the story.
Handshake at the end of competition:
And the announcement…
Team Taylor’s Market wins! See you next year.
Eat Real Festival 2013 – Coffee
The organizers of this year’s Eat Real Festival decided to group all of the coffee folks together into a “Coffee Pavilion”, which included Blue Bottle Coffee, Ritual Coffee Roasters, The Bicycle Coffee Company, Bloom (a new coffee delivery service), Barefoot Coffee Roasters, Roast Co, and Mr. Espresso. Sweet Maria’s also joined in with some home roasting demonstrations. All of the good stuff in one place – Jack London Square, Oakland, California.
Blue Bottle was offering tours of their roastery, which is only 2 blocks away from Jack London Square. After going over the history of the company, Bennett served samples of their 3 Africans blend to the audience, brewed in a Chemex:
Bennett described how coffee cherries are processed and showed a few examples of beans that had been wet and dry-processed.
The tour continued with a description of the roasting process (2 giant Probat roasters in this case) and then a visit to the barista training lab, where Bennett described the training process and explained some of the training equipment.
Back at the festival, Chris from Ritual Coffee Roasters gave an Aeropress demonstration in the coffee pavilion, which had been decorated with coffee-themed posters by Bloom.
Chris showed off his favorite Aeropress recipe. 16 grams of beans (I believe he was using their El Angel from Costa Rica):
with a grind somewhere between a drip and espresso. He put 2 paper filters in the Aeropress for more back-pressure and then poured water that had been off of a boil for a few minutes.
He sealed the Aeropress by just barely putting the plunger in, then let it rest for 60 seconds. After 60 seconds, he agitated the bloom with a spoon, and then waited another 60 seconds (I think?) before finally plunging: 
It was a great cup. Fairly fruit-forward with sweet tart notes that got stronger as the coffee cooled.
Ritual’s Sputnik is usually a fixture at the festival, but they were not allowed to bring the trailer to this year’s festival due to some Alameda County restrictions. But the baristas were cool with it:
I wanted to have some of Bicycle Coffee’s nitro brew and something from Barefoot, but I was already too wound up on caffeine to have any more..
Sous Vide Experiment: Brisket
I’ve been conducting some sous vide experiments lately. My sister bought me a deep fryer a while back, and I decided to convert it into a sous vide machine. I guess it can still function as a deep fryer, but I’ve been cooking food in water instead of oil..
I’m pretty new to this, so I expect to have some not-very-good food. This was my brisket experiment, inspired by some delicious smoked brisket at a recent birthday BBQ.
Here’s the raw cut of meat, about 1.6 pounds. The other side of the brisket did not have much of a fat cap, I guess it had been trimmed away? I seasoned it with a bit of salt and pepper and sugar. I think next time, I will skip the salt.
I put the brisket in the sous vide cooker at 62.2C for 46 hours. Douglas Baldwin has a couple of suggestions for brisket, and I chose a temperature close to the French Laundry’s. I elected not to brine, because, well, I didn’t feel like it. I added 1.5 tablespoons of butter to the bag and put it in the machine.
Here’s the beef after 46 hours. It shrank to about 60% of its original size.
I saved the liquid left over for gravy: I browned an onion and then mixed the liquid in and let it reduce for a while. I dried off the meat with paper towels and then seared with a blowtorch.
The blowtorch method is new to me, but I think worked pretty well.
The beef was a little grey; I think it was cooked about medium to medium-well. Some of it was starting to become flaky.
It tasted great, but was a bit dry. But not too dry. It was probably comparable in texture to the brisket that I had from the smoker. Paired with the gravy, it was delicious.
My brisket recipe:
- Season with salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar before sous vide
- Sous vide for 46 hours at 62.2C
- Use the liquid for gravy
- Dry, then sear with blowtorch
Changes for next time:
- Try to salt after sous vide – maybe it will be moister?
- Lower temperature (57C) or higher temperature (80C)
- Omit the butter next time?
Coffee in Helsinki
It’s been a while since our Nordic / Scandinavian vacation, but I’ve finally gotten around to getting some photos together.
The coffee culture is pretty great up there. As with many of my trips, I decided to take a self-guided coffee tour through as many areas as I could manage, limited by time and my caffeine tolerance. I found some recommendations from the Nordic Coffee Culture Blog and mapped out my points of interest.
My first destination was Finland. I was decently jet-lagged, and woke up super early my first morning in Helsinki, after going to bed fairly late, in awe of the length of the daylight hours. I walked to the Kallio neighborhood and had to wait a few minutes before my first destination, Kahvila Sävy, opened. I walked around the block while I was waiting and arrived to see them put out their “We (heart) Coffee” sign and their outside tables and chairs.
Two friendly baristas staffed the interior. It was a bit stuffy but it felt splendid to be there. I think I forgot to take tasting notes, but this was my favorite espresso in Helsinki. And I really liked the neighborhood. It was maybe a 20-30 minute walk from downtown, but had a nice quiet and gritty feel.
I walked a long way after that to my 2nd coffee destination, Kaffa Roastery. The roastery is located in the design district of Helsinki, which is sprinkled with neat arty shops amidst nicely colored, monolithic residential buildings. Kaffa is at ground level in a brick building, but its lighting makes it look sort of like you’re in the basement of IKEA.
The roastery is behind the coffee shop, which is stocked with a cool selection of coffee grinders, machines, and gadgets. Next door, there was a shop that sold bright but rustic housewares. Kaffa had a surprising selection of coffees, and it was here that, in addition to my espresso, I bought a coffee souvenir. An aside: I’m not a fan of dark roasts, but I did want to have some Monsoon Malabar coffee for home. When I got home, eagerly opened the Monsoon Malabar from Kaffa and was surprised to find beans that were slightly oily, a sure sign of a dark roast. I made an espresso anyways and was not too impressed. I bought the Monsoon Malabar because I wanted to taste some earthy and funky spice notes in my coffee but all I could taste was burn. This is not Kaffa’s fault, though – they clearly indicate on the front of their label that there are 5/5 circles for “paahtoaste”, or “the degree of browning” as google translates it. I just didn’t understand that at the time. They also indicate that it is 5/5 for “täyteläisyys” (body) and 1/5 for “hedelmäisyys” (fruitiness).
Anyways, their espresso was fine. Not that special, and definitely not bad. But I’ve been spoiled by the bright and fruity espressos that I’ve had of late in the Bay Area…
I decided to push it and go for a 3rd espresso for the day. I was already starting to get the caffeine sweats. My next stop was La Torrefazione. It’s in the major shopping and retail district of Helsinki – just south of the central train station. It’s like San Francisco’s Union Square. You can get in through a slim entrance that leads to the cafe on the 2nd floor:
Wall art:
Once again, lacking tasting notes, I don’t really have much to say about this espresso other than it was “fine”. If I hadn’t already been 2 coffees in for the day, maybe I would have thought differently.. but I’d be happy to have coffee from La Torrefazione as my morning cup on a normal day. Unlike the two other cafes that I visited, this one had more food and other drink options. I chose a croissant to try to dilute the effects of my caffeine intake.
I waited until the next day for my next espresso.
We went back to Kahvila Sävy:
And then walked a long ways, exploring the neighborhood. We went to the fun Made in Kallio store/cafe and then made our way downtown. We had some crazy chanterelle toast at Galleria Keidas, then walked through parks and busy streets, through Hakaniemi Market Hall, the University of Helsinki, the Helsinki Cathedral, and Senate Square. (photos to come)
Our next destination was Johan & Nyström. It’s housed in a long brick building just next to the gigantic Upenski Cathedral. Johan & Nyström is a Nordic coffee chain based in Sweden that also sells fine teas and a variety of different coffees. They also have some neat espresso machines in a sort of gallery in the back of the store.
Our barista was happy and outgoing. I couldn’t pick up where his accent was from, but I’d guess Australia.
I was the least impressed with their espresso, though I’d certainly choose theirs over any “non-fancy-coffee-place” espresso. And I think it had more to do with their style – they served a full-bodied, blend of dark-roasted coffee, which is more traditional, but not as much to my liking. But loaded with thick crema, it made for a nice photo.
I definitely don’t want to knock their coffee, or any other coffee that I had in Helsinki – all of the espressos I had were well-prepared and generally good.
next (hopefully?): coffee in Stockholm.