NaNoWriMo 2006 success.

Madison.

National Novel Writing Month is over. As of last night. For me. I even have the purple bar to prove it.

I ran into a minor snag in this year's novel, the sort of thing I'd never had trouble with before: the novel ended early.¹ Previous efforts, with the exception of 2004,² were sprawling, endless messes that were even less resolved at the end of the month than they were when I'd started. It may sound interesting, but there's a deadening quality to it, an inertia to the whole story that's maddeningly difficult to overcome after the inevitable December writing rest. I haven't bothered to re-read the earlier semi-novels, let alone make any real effort at continuing from where I left off. I should, just to clip out the good bits, but...

Finding the worthwhile parts requires slogging, hip-deep or worse, through the rest of it. And there's a lot of the rest of it. Since I do it all on the typewriter, it's rife with spelling errors. As a stickler for spelling, it's tough to read, but when my fingers hit two keys in the wrong order,³ I just decide to live with it. Only the most gut-wrenching mistakes end up covered in a series of quickly-tapped xs.

Last year's novel took until midway through the fourth line before I hit a typo. This year, it's the eighth word.

That same spelling-error-retaining quality also prevents me from making use of a popular NaNoWriMo padding technique: going back to a part you've previously written and expanding upon it. Add some extra description or dialogue, or even an entirely new chapter. I can't do that. What's written is written, nearly set in stone, if you will. So, when the novel ended, and I counted up the last of the words, I needed to do something new.

I wrote a short story. It has nothing to do with the novel. It's its own, entirely self-contained entity, eight pages of refreshing change.

This year's novel is titled "Red Hawk Cemetery", changed from the original working title of "Ghost Town". It's a Western horror story, about a group of train robbers on the run from bounty hunters who end up in an isolated village in the Rockies. They all end up trapped in this halfway-abandoned village, hunted by grave-robbing monsters that lurk in the shadows. You know, pretty regular stuff. Guys try resolving violence with more violence, and end up done in by it. Pretty brutally, at that, but, hey, it's horror.

The short story, the extra words, is titled "Tin Robot". It's just a little story, not much more than a nugget of an idea, about a robot who moves in next door to a young couple. A big, boxy robot named, appropriately enough, Tin Robot.

Sharon commented that I must really like robots.⁴ I don't know that I do. I'm really more fascinated by them, as a handy symbol of technological dependence and omnipresence. Think Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick or Blade Runner, Ridley Scott's film adaptation. Or even better, find a copy of Dick's "The Electric Ant". It's a bizarre and wonderful short story about a man who discovers he's a robot and starts experimenting with himself. By monkeying with the input tape that controls his senses - this was back during computer punch-card days - he ends up warping (and destroying) reality.

I do know that I really like typewriters. One downside of using mine all month long is that I end up really confused about the locations of certain keys.⁵ Curious how mine stacks up against your regular keyboard layout? Here it is:



* * * * *

¹48,246 words, to be precise.

²I only made it about halfway that year, to somewhere just over 25,000 words.

³But not too close together, so that they get stuck. Sometimes, usually when I'm trying to type by, the force of the y key colliding with the returning b creates a ghost of a b beside the original. It's happened so many times that I'm starting to like it.

⁴The previous two novels both featured robots. 2004 had little robots as the gimmicky, halfway-pointless technology that consumer culture surrounds itself with, the equivalent of mobile phones and iPods; the main character's job was repairing them when they broke down. 2005's main character was a robot himself, but only realized this after a messy motorcycle crash. With no known precedent for it - no more robots around than we're used to today - he becomes obsessed, to the point of cutting himself open to study his robot-ness further.

⁵The same thing happens with foreign computer keyboards, when you're traveling. If you're gone for a long enough stint, you get the fun of being confused again when you travel home.

Thank you for smoking.

Madison.

It's been some months since I first cobbled together my homemade cold-smoker, and I'm realizing that, despite putting it to good use on several occasions, I've never taken the time to explain it in detail. First, the distinction between the two primary forms of smoking food:

• Hot-smoking
  This means simultaneously cooking and smoking food. In their book, Charcuterie, Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn make an addition distinction of "smoke-roasting", by which they mean smoking at moderate temperatures, around 350°F; when their recipes note "hot-smoking", they mean to use a temperature of approximately 200°F. In essence, the result is the same, with the cooking temperature determining the length of time that the the food stays in contact with the smoke.
  
  The options for hot-smokers are pretty wide-open. I tend to rely on my charcoal grill, which is about as simple and straightforward as it can be. A large roasting pan or wok, with a tight-fitting lid - and a pretty serious exhaust system - could do the trick inside the kitchen. For gadget-lovers, there's always the Bradley Smoker, which has temperature controls, several racks to handle large quantities at one time, and several different sizes and options to choose from. Then again, the standard model's $350, plus shipping, and you need the space to put a refrigerator-sized smokebox.
  
  Oh, and it requires the manufacturer's hockey-puck-looking¹ "bisquettes" as smoking material. Sure, they're available in a variety of hardwoods, but that's still awkward and limiting.
  
  
• Cold-smoking
  This means smoking food without cooking it, which requires temperatures below 100°F - preferably in the 60° to 80°F range. It's not easy to do. Creating smoke takes a lot of heat, and you need to dissipate that while still getting the smoke where you want it.
  
  The Bradley folks claim that their machines can do this², but Ruhlman and Polcyn found it difficult to do. They had to place a pan full of ice between the smokebox and the food, and that takes a fair bit of maintenance effort over time. Still, they note that "professional smokehouses that include some sort of refrigeration device and do all the work for you cost as much as a car."
  
  What other options does the home cook have? The authors note that Bruce Aidells, a San Francisco sausage maker, has a method of placing a few burning coals into a pie pan full of sawdust, then setting it in a covered grill. It's really labor-intensive, requiring regular replacement of the coals as they burn out, but sounds like it works well.
  
  Or you can just build your own setup.

Which is what I did.

The biggest part of my decision to do this was to save money, but there are a few other aspects of the homemade system that have been bonuses. Ease of modification is one; the ability to use a full range of smokable materials is another. When I have the time for a more permanent setup, there are some modifications I plan to make to this design, but I'm quite happy with it for now.

In essence, the smoker is a two-box setup. Smoke is produced in one box, and fed to another, unheated box containing the food. Below is a schematic diagram, as it currently exists. (Click on the picture for a larger version.)


Key:

1. This is the connector between the two smoker boxes. I've used some 4-inch, flexible, aluminum dryer vent ducting, which is good for two things: I can set up the two smoker boxes wherever I want³; and I can compress or extend the duct to adjust the amount of exposed surface area - and hence heat loss - the smoke has before it reaches the food. It hooks to the smoker boxes via some 4-inch duct adapters, so the duct can be removed and collapsed inside its box when it's not in use.
   
   
2. The tops of the boxes open. (There's nothing on the bottom, and hence nothing to contact the heating element or to be dripped on.) I'd toyed with the idea of side doors, to limit the amount of smoke lost while checking on things, but they required laying on the ground to use, and smoke pours out of every possible crack, anyhow. As long as you remember to keep your face back while the first puff of smoke pours out, the operable lid's the way to go.
   
   
3. Wood. I've used hardwood chips, hardwood sawdust, and hickory nut shells. I've heard of people using fist-sized chunks of fruitwood. Other possibilities include coffee beans, herb branches (such as rosemary), hops and tea leaves. If it smells good, and you think it'll make food taste good, it'll probably work. A major exception are softwoods, such as pine. The resins in softwoods produce a foul smoke that'll make the food taste like tar.
   
   To minimize the need for significant cleanup, I wrap the stuff-to-be-burned in a layer of aluminum foil, seal it tightly and puncture the top about a dozen times with a pencil tip. I find that 1-½ cups of stuff will give me about half an hour of smoke, and that two of those packets will fit side by side an 8-inch cast iron skillet, so that one can finish up as the next one warms up.
   
   
4. A cast iron skillet. The indispensable, indestructible kitchen tool. Also: cheap at your neighborhood hardware store. Here, it functions as a barrier between the heating element and the wood to be smoked.
   
   
5. The intake fan. I've built a cardboard funnel that attaches to the front of a cheap, square 120V fan to push air into the smoker box. By keeping the intake and exit openings from aligning, the low-volume displacement pushes smoky air from the smoking chamber to the food chamber.
   
   
6. A hot plate. Though this has an adjustable temperature control, it remains at full for the length of the smoking process. It's just a simple electric cooking element that plugs into the same power source as the intake fan. Note that the box is significantly larger than the fan to keep things from unexpectedly igniting.⁴
   
   
7. The smoker box. Hot smoke is produced in here, far away from the food. It's a cardboard box, roughly 18"x18"x24", assembled with duct tape.⁵ In order to keep it from being blown about by any sudden gusts of wind, I place a concrete block tight up against it on two opposite sides. My current design is not collapsible, which is a worthwhile consideration for future versions.
   
   
8. A cooling rack. In order to get the most smoke on the food, it needs to have as much airflow around it as possible. To keep it simple, I use an old cooling rack propped up on some ramekins.
   
   
9. The food. Whatever it is, it just sits there. As long as it's safe to leave in a warm, low-oxygen environment for several hours, you could use pretty much anything you like.
   
   
10. The food box. It's a lot like the smoker box, except with only the smoke intake opening. Technically, I suppose you need to provide some ventilation to allow some smoke to escape, but there are enough open seams to accomplish that. When the duct is fully extended, the interior of this box lingers at just about ambient temperature.

Successes thus far include tomatoes, which make for excellent soups and salsas, among other possibilities. They add a smoky dimension that can range from subtle to intense, depending on how long they've been smoked and how prominently they feature in the final dish. Thus far, I've been happy with two hours in the smoker, then adding just enough smoky tomato to get beyond the "subtle hint" stage.

The most recent use of the smoker was to create my own bacon⁶, flavored with maple syrup, brown sugar, and lots of smoke. I used hickory nut shells for four hours, which gives it a very intense woodsmoke flavor that softens as it cooks. There's a definite difference between this and, say, an applewood bacon, and I'm more inclined to use less to keep the flavors in a dish balanced. That said, a few slices are great with eggs and toast.

I still haven't smoked fish, salmon or otherwise, which I'd thought would be one of the first things in the box. Also on the to-smoke list: scallops or shrimp; fresh ricotta or another fresh cheese; pork and other fresh sausages; cured duck or chicken breast; and whatever else seems like it'd taste good. Someday, maybe I'll even try cold-smoking some pale malt for a homemade rauchbier.

* * * * *

¹They're Canadian.

²Subject to ambient temperature, but you can't hold that against them.

³Such as out of the direct sun, which is a necessity in the summer.

⁴As with grilling, a handy fire extinguisher is always a sensible idea, as are a pair of large, heat-resistant gloves.

⁵Duct tape is unreliable, from an adhesive standpoint, so I'd caution against using this unless no other options are available. Know what duct tape is good for? Removing warts. I'm completely serious.

⁶Nearly five pounds of it, which is in addition to an equal amount of pancetta. That's a lot of cured pork belly, no matter how you look at it.

NaNoWriMo wordcount.

Madison.

Ah, NaNoWriMo. That marginally sane November writing extravaganza that's going to keep me from posting much to this blog. For those who're interested, you can watch my progress on this little wordcounting widget:



Keep in mind that I'm writing this year's novel - as I did for the last two years - on my traveling typewriter. (Yes, that's a picture of my typewriter to the right.) That means that I count my words one by one, by hand with a red pen. I'm not always able to update the wordcount on the website on a regular basis, so the wordcount may jump forward in big chunks.

So far, so good.