Kraut Bierock made easy

Charlie's German Kraut Burritos

I suppose you might not think that cooking is a Right Brain activity, but it seems to me that it is as much as poetry writing or playing music... especially the way I do those things... too much left brain in there! Good chefs must be great artists, great managers, and great technicians at the same time! Even engineers sometimes!

Below is a modern take on an old traditional German dish called kraut bierock or "cabbage bread" or "beer rocks". While this is an old tradition in my family, I found a new link so you can see what they look like: http://cabcooks.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/kraut-bierock-bieroch/

Traditional bierocks have no cheese, no carrots, and no ketchup!
Plus, you grate the cabbage by hand, make bread dough and then laboriously
roll out rounds to wrap around dollops of the cabbage mixture... a lot of work!

We have recently started making them like a Stromboli, which is like a
pizza except that it has the cabbage mix on top! You roll it into a long
loaf, bake and slice to serve... a little easier.

Now, I have gone one step farther and lost the bread dough completely... I invented German Kraut Burritos! Just make the cabbage mixture, then spoon a dollop onto a tortilla, add optional cheese, then roll it up and take a little ketchup if you want! Enjoy!

Gabbage mixture...

Dice an onion and brown in a pan. Add 1 lb of lean hamburger, garlic, salt,and lots of black pepper - I go light on newbies! After that is all browned, add a bag of pre-grated cole slaw mix from the market. Cook the mixture until the cabbage is soft, but not mushy!
Not too hard - eh?

Charlie

The hex-flute experiment

The hex-flute experiment

There was a recent thread on the Native American Flute Woodworking Yahoo Group that I read about making square flutes. It made me remember a subject I wondered about a while ago. I searched the group files to see if this had been discussed before, and did not find anything... maybe this will be of interest to others too.

Many of you probably know that until recently most fly fishing rods were made from split tonkin cane. So, they are not one piece of cane, but are actually little strips of cane split to size and then glued together! It was quite a shock when I first found that out... I just did not notice it. All of my fly rods have been composite! : )?

My dad had a fine old cane rod that he passed on to me before his death. So I dug that out and sure enough it is strips glued together! Each strip only needs to be as long as that section of the rod, with usually 3 or 4 sections.

Anyway, I wondered about making a flute like that. Either from 1/4" wood or from bamboo. It should be a lot less likely to split, but you have a lot more potential for glue seam leeks! I figured one could make a hexagonal or octagonal cross section pretty easily. You can get router bits with the correct angles. Or, I thought about building a "trough" with the correct angle, then sticking sand paper to the inside. Rough out the shape with a common 45 degree bit, then finish forming the bevels by sanding them in the trough. Finally, glue them together et voi la - a flute blank! Many drums are made this way... as well as barrels! You could leave them as shaped on the outside or turn them down to a cylinder... no need to change the inside.

Interestingly, one strip of a hexagonal flute would be almost exactly 1/2 the diameter... the perfect size for the TSH! Insert a hex plug to form the SAC which would also hold the shape while gluing with a dowel inserted a tiny bit into the south end. Of course you would build the wind way features into the final strip. After you made a few you might be confident enough to rough out the holes before gluing too. As the group mentioned before, this method would allow you to dress the inside of the finger holes. Wrap a rubber band or length of surgical tubing around it to hold it while drying.

One reason I thought the group had discussed this was in the back of my mind I remember someone talking about making a tapered square flute this way. Of course, that is exactly what the fly rod makers are doing, but with more strips! The angles are the same the whole way, so you should just be able to cut each strip on a taper, run all sides past the router bit and glue them up! The fly rod maker has a harder problem because each strip also gets thinner as it gets smaller.

As I move deeper into bass flutes, I wonder if tapering north to south would squeeze another note or two out of my limited finger stretch... ya'know? Especially if I put holes 3 and 6 on the back of the flute... Keys? I don't need no stinkin' keys! The hole placement geometry should be interesting to figure out...

I can here you already... Interesting! Give it a try and let us know how it works out for ya...
Charlie

The Bass Flute F3 Diatonic

OK, flute lovers... urban bamboo (PVC) aficionados... tooters...

A friend of a friend wanted a bass recorder, so the friend mentioned that I make PVC flutes.  I said... Well, I do not make recorders... although I do make flutes... but I am not sure if I have time right now.  Then, after around 25 hours of work, I had my first F3 flute!  (157 Hz)  The next one should be a bit easier!

This one ended up with fairly large finger holes after tuning.   I will use this one to refine the design for the next one (for the friend) and should have an excellent flute for the 3rd one (for the fof)!  Cool!

(Click Images to enlarge)



Above are some pics of BF1 (Big Bertha), an F#, and a C5.   The F#  was one of my earliest flutes.  It has a D-shaped TSH (True Sound Hole) and the "flue" has been scraped, built up with fingernail polish, filled with PVC slivers on the sides... it is a mess!  It has an interesting airy sound that I really like for some tunes.  The "totem" is a "bird" a diving Hawk... can you see it?  So I call this one the Hawk.




The C5, "baby",  is one of 30 flutes I made to send 24 with a missionary to African orphans.  I wanted them to be very small and have no outside parts like most of my other flutes.  It has a lateral oval shaped TSH and a very clear tone like a penny whistle.




All of these flutes are made using  the methods of many Native American Style flutes.  I am not a member of any Native American nation, and do not claim to know their heritage or culture.  I appreciate the willingness with which so many of the Native American flute makers allow me to enjoy and participate in their craft.  Thank You!




I do not follow all of the normal guidelines,  so my flutes are a bit different.  For one thing they are almost all tuned like Irish whistles!  (Even my shakuhachi flutes!)   I'm just an old German 'Celt' monk who barely runs in mocs and toots PVC... I guess...




I call this bass "Big Bertha"!  It is 40" long with 33.2 of that being the actual sound column.  There is a SAC (slow air chamber) on the top (north) with a blow pipe so I can reach the holes, and a tail on the south beyond "4-winds" tuning holes.  The column length to diameter ratio is 21.25 which is a bit high and causes it to easily jump from the F3 to F4.  The holes must be carefully sealed or the F3 is very hard to get.  The next 2 flutes should be easier to play F3. The "baby" flute is only 11" with a ratio of  17.6.  That is a good compromise for me because I like playing the upper octave.  Flutes with smaller ratios, like 15, are very mellow but do not play more than a few notes in the second octave.

Enjoy the sound samples.  They are my first attempts at recording my flutes and my first Audacity project. I recorded with a ZOOM H4.   I used a little bit of echo to add some warmth.  Also please ignore the occasional bump and thump as I learn to better place the mic... and intonation is a big problem as I stretch to cover those over-sized holes... always learning!

(Click to play mp3)

F3_BF1_PartingGlass (trad.)

F3_BF1_Jazzy

F3_BF1_BygoneDays (Ivers)

F#_Hawk_BygoneDays (Ivers)

F#_Hawk_TimeAgo

C5_Africa_RakesKildare (trad.)

C5_Africa_10KftMeadowCreekMorning

The Coventry Charol - Lully Lullay

A few years ago at Christmas time my heart was gripped by the hauntingly sad sound of the traditional Christmas carol Lully Lullay.  Why such a sad song at such a joyous time of the year?  I wondered if it had something to do with the sadness that plagues many people at that time of the year... missing loved ones, the passing of your life, time to reflect.

I could not get that song out of my mind, so I started a search for the story behind the song.  As it turns out, it is sad indeed, and in exactly the correct season.  First, let me assure you that I found similar information in several online sources.  So, while I generally mistrust things I read on the internet, I believe that the sources here are in enough agreement that I believe this is a true account of the story and meaning.

The song comes from an English tradition in Coventry and some other cities in the 16th century.   Some of the young priests asked if they could do plays to illustrate the Biblical stories because the services were conducted in Latin.  They were allowed to do it, and the plays became more and more popular until they were moved outdoors!  Eventually, the mode settled on was that the people would gather in several venues around the city and the plays were conducted on wagons.  Each wagon was "owned and operated" by a guild, such as the masons, carpenters, goldsmiths and tailors.  When all of the plays ended, a signal was fired and all of the wagons moved to another group of watchers!  Cleaver!  Everyone got to see all of the plays without moving!

Some of the wagons were very ornate and had incredible engineering such as moving platforms, rising stairs and etc.  Usually the bottom level of the wagon was the dressing room, so the stage/s were on the roof.  Shakespeare probably saw these plays in his youth.

As it turned out, over the centuries more and more humor made its way into the plays and that humor got to be more and more bawdy... so the church decided to put an end to it and all of the wagons, music, and scripts were lost... almost.  One remaining piece was the haunting Lully Lullay.

Lully Lullay, now know as the Coventry Carol, was from a play put on by the Shearmen and Tailors about when Herod's men went through Bethlehem killing all male babies 2 years old and younger.  During the song two sisters try to quiet a baby boy so that they could hide him.  Alas, they fail, so the soldiers find and kill the baby.  I do not know the exact sequence, but read the words below and see if you agree with this:

Verse 1,2: The sisters try to quiet and hide the baby boy.

Verse 3: The soldiers break in, find the baby and kill him.

Verse 4: The sisters mourn over the dead child.

1. Lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child.
By, by, lully, lullay.

2. O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

3. Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay.

4. Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For Thy parting, nor say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

(http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/coventry_carol-1.htm ,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coventry_Carol, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A8378733, http://www.archive.org/stream/religiousdrama2m007883mbp/religiousdrama2m007883mbp_djvu.txt (In the introduction E. Martin Browne says that the play was not actually a part of the Coventry cycles, but this is nevertheless the traditional belief.), http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Prayers+people/1111124/story.html)

It seems so obvious now that I was embarrassed that I did not know the meaning of this song before.  However, almost no one I talk to knows about it's meaning.  May I always remember what incredible things God has done to pay the price for my sin.  He sent his beloved son into the world that He might die so that I might be saved.  I praise Him that in this time of danger the baby Jesus was saved by Joseph fleeing Bethlehem after being warned by an angle.  I pray that I may be so responsive to my Lord's voice.