Jonathan Snook's Blog, page 4

Rituals

I get up, get dressed, and meander into the kitchen rubbing the sleep from my bleary eyes while the morning sun reflects off sides of buildings. I grab the portafilter from the espresso machine, give it a clean wipe, and place it under the grinder. I pull out 18 grams of pre-measured beans and pour it into the machine, turning it on, watching the chocolate-coloured fines shoot out. I spread the grounds evenly—sometimes with my prickly distribution tool and other times with just my finger. Then I take the tamper and adjust my arm to apply even pressure, giving it a slight turn to give the puck a polish.

The portafilter is lifted into the grouphead and given a firm twist into place. The scale and cup are placed underneath and the button is pressed to being the extraction. The slow hiss of the pre-infusion and then the first few drops are followed by a more steady stream of fresh, delicious espresso, forming a nice head of crema. I press the button again to cease the process.

I flip the lever on the steam wand, preparing it for the task at hand: creating a whirlpool of light foamy froth of whole milk I’ve poured halfway up in my carafe. The sound, like paper ripping, starts high and slower lowers as the milk warms and is infused with steam. A flick of the lever turns off the rush and I give the wand a quick stroke to keep it clean.

With carafe in one hand, my cup of espresso in the other, I pour the milk quickly and then slowly in an attempt to create a recognizable design. Perhaps a heart or tulip, but more often than not, an amorphous blob of white.

In the Moment

I have realized that I have established many rituals in my life that enable me to be present in the moment. It’s not about the past or the future—it’s about right now.

When I’m making that espresso, I am present in the process. I am all about what is in front of me.

Cooking a meal helps me to be present. Going to a fine dining restaurant helps me to be present. Sitting on a patio with a cocktail in hand, smoking a cigar helps me to be present. All of these might seem like indulgences and they are but I like them because it gives me time to appreciate them and appreciate the now.

That’s not to say I can’t be present with less indulgent experiences. Tonight, I stopped at a McDonald’s drive-thru to pick up some McNuggets. As I sat at home, eating, I could’ve been present but instead was online, distracted. If I sought to be present, I’m not sure I would’ve enjoyed the meal that was more about sustenance than experience. How much do I want to be aware while eating slightly undercooked fries that taste like the oil didn’t want to let go of the limp and overly salty potato?

But I digress.

I like to seek out moments and experiences that keep me present. It’s like meditation. Perhaps interestingly, since I chose it for a career, web development is like that for me. When I get into the zone, it becomes a form of meditation.

The moment when the drum’n’bass cranks out of the headphones, and my fingers are flowing, with boxes and words and boxes with words popping onto screen, coming together into a cohesive thing. Can’t beat it.

As I’ve done less coding these past few years, perhaps it is becoming more obvious why I’ve been seeking out more opportunities for ritual and meditation and presence.

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Unexpected Conversations

Sometimes things work out better than expected.

I flew into San Diego to visit Addison and put a little bow on that particular quest but if I’m flying from one side of the continent to the other, I might as well spend a few days exploring.

Over a decade earlier, I had spoken at a conference in San Diego but I barely remember that trip. I vaguely recall the conference centre and presenting on stage but I couldn’t remember the city itself, with the exception of driving by an aircraft carrier. Sure enough, as I take the taxi to my hotel in the Gaslamp neighbourhood, there’s the aircraft carrier. At least I remembered that correctly.

I’ve travelled alone quite a bit and as such, I have my routines: find things to do and find places to eat.

For things to do, I generally like to do the tourist traps. Museums and art galleries and I’ll even do the bus tours. On this trip, I hit up the pier, I did the zoo, and walked around Balboa Park.

For food, I have my fine dining options picked, of course, but I’ll also check sites like Eater to see if there are possibly more casual options available.

I also like to hit up a different coffee shop every day. This takes me into different neighbourhoods and helps me explore a bit more, as I tend to do this on foot. Here, I went to Cafe Moto in Barrio Logan, Bird Rock in Downtown, and James Coffee Co in Little Italy. All were a 30 to 45 minute walk from my hotel. All of the coffee shops were okay, but not amazing. James Coffee is situated in a neat place with a handful of retail stores surrounding them and airplanes heard overhead every few minutes as they come in for landing.

The night after I went to Addison, I went to Youngblood—a speakeasy tucked away in the back of the Neighborhood bar. (There’s also another place called Noble Experiment in there.) It was on North America’s 50 Best Bars last year and for good reason. The collection of unusual spirits alone are worth a visit but the service was also top notch as the bartenders really engage in conversation. What took me by surprise was how conversational everybody else was at the bar. When I mentioned having gone to Addison, the two tech bros to my left were engaged to know more about my restaurant adventures. The woman to my right told me all about Soichi Sushi which I had conveniently already booked for the following night. I was surprised and delighted by the entire experience. I went in thinking I’d sit quietly at a bar enjoying a couple cocktails and walked out having a lively conversation with a half dozen folks and some bonus pours from the bartender after I expressed interest in their unique selection of liqueurs.

Soichi Sushi is the only other Michelin-starred restaurant in San Diego and what I booked for my last night in the city. (Unless you consider Carlsbad part of San Diego as every San Diegan insisted that the city had four Michelin-starred restaurants. Although I did get stories of the Kardashians enjoying some well-to-do restaurant up there.)

Again, I’m going in expecting a quiet omakase experience with hopefully some delicious sushi. I’m sat at the corner of the chef’s counter with 4 seats to my left and 7 seats to my right. Only two of the four seats are taken and I hear them chattering about how late—nearly an hour—their mates were. Once they arrive, the four middle-aged dudes are loud and boisterous and frequently making jokes with Chef Soichi who seemed to reluctantly play along. It’s clear that at least a couple of the guys had frequented this place before.

The three people to my right mostly spoke a different language but they spoke quietly enough that I couldn’t really hear what was being spoken. It was a couple courses in when the woman immediately to my right struck up a conversation. It turned out she was there with her husband and her brother, whose birthday they were there to celebrate. Turns out, they frequent this place often, too, remarking that it was more difficult to get a seat since they got their Michelin star.

Rounds of sake from everybody was being shared with the chefs, then the three to my right—who turned out to be from Brazil originally—shared their sake with me. Then I shared mine with them. Then the guys to my right were running low so I shared my sake with them. Then the hostess shared her favourite sake with me.

And then Chef Soichi pulled out a guitar and sang happy birthday to the birthday boy.

The evening ended up more delightfully surreal than expected.

I came back from San Diego with an appreciation for how friendly the people were and also an appreciation for why I enjoy travelling, even if travelling alone: to be present and have a story to tell.

I somewhat miss my days of speaking at and attending conferences, as it was an opportunity to meet people with common interests. I have many memories of after-conference parties running until the wee hours of the morning filled with great conversation. It was nice to get a taste of that once again with this trip.

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100/13

In 2017, on a photography workshop in the Faroe Islands, the organizers had a reservation at KOKS, Michelin-starred restaurant, but being busy with organizing said workshop, decided that they couldn’t make it and offered up the opportunity to whomever wanted to take it. I volunteered.

I’m pretty sure this was the first Michelin-starred restaurant I went to. Since that time, I’ve made it a habit to go to fine dining restaurants wherever I might be travelling to and is what eventually led to my 50 adventure that I completed earlier this year.

The 50 adventure was a delightful excuse for travel, sending me off to both popular and unusual locations alike. When I completed that challenge, I noticed that I had been to quite a few Michelin-starred restaurants as they often overlapped with those on the World’s 50 Best. This year, I noticed that I was fast approaching 100 starred restaurants.

I decided on Addison, in San Diego, as my 100th. It would also coincide with being the 13th and last 3-star restaurant in the United States that I needed to get to.

The experience at Addison ended up being an amazing one with decent pacing and absolutely delicious courses throughout.

The starting tepache, a fermented beverage originating from Mexico, provided a lovely burst of flavour to start the meal.

This quickly transitioned into the quatro of amuse bouches. The first two, a sake cured kanpachi and greens, were flavourful and complex and absolutely fantastic. The third, an anchovies and potato bite, was richer and more umami but still packed a punch due to the meyer lemon jam. The last one was a chicken liver churro that was more subtle and didn’t come in with any intense flavours that I expected.

Next up was the kanpachi flower that was divine. (Although I could’ve sworn the server said hamachi.) The kanpachi and yuzu was fresh but not overpowering, as yuzu can be. Well balanced and delicious.

The uni on chawanmushi was light and delicious but the chawanmushi itself was decent but didn’t stand out. (Perch, here in Ottawa, has probably been my favourite chawanmushi to date.)

Then the “eggs and rice”. OMG. I upgraded the caviar to their Regiis Ova reserve and this had to have been the best caviar I’ve ever had. The entire dish took me to another level and I savoured each and every single bite of this dish, making sure there wasn’t a drop left in the bowl. It was nutty and salty and sweet. The caviar stood out on its own in a way that I’ve never found caviar could. This was definitely the highlight of the evening.

The “fish and chips” had another hefty heaping of caviar that again, was great on its own but also paired well with a burnt onion dip that I swear had dill in it. I hit flavour satiation with this dish about halfway through and used the dill pickle to cleanse the palate before heading off into the next course, all of which were coming out one after the other, with little time to rest between each course.

The next fish course, the splendid alfonsino in a crab consommé, was lighter and provided a contrast to the previous and next dish, a tempura fried “crispy horse mackerel” bringing back more intense, rich flavours with a hint of spice. There was a real musicality to the way the meal was served up with plenty of moments for contrasting flavours and textures.

The sourdough bread came out with a goat’s milk butter and a browned honey butter, both of which I enjoyed. I could’ve eaten the whole loaf but I saved myself knowing there was still plenty more food to come. It was also at this point where the service began to slow a little bit, which I welcomed. I almost felt rushed with how quickly the meal had gone up until this point.

To finish off the savoury were two quail courses. The first was an egg drop soup with silken tofu and shiitake muchrooms. Tasty, well prepared, but unexciting. Again contrasting with the final savoury dish with a cantonese quail and five-spice quail jus, that packed more sweet and savoury and a yu choy that was spectacular. (Although, I could’ve sworn the server said it was garleek. Perhaps I need to get my hearing checked.)

Next up was a “Mangonada”, a mango-based palate cleanser with lime, chamoy, and tajin that was very intense. It was still delicious but I think something milder would’ve been nice at this point.

The sommelier was excited to serve the 1976 Sauternes and I can understand why. It’s not everyday one gets to have such an old wine. Alas, I wasn’t as enthralled as the sommelier. It was decent but I wasn’t blown away by it.

With that said, the wine pairings throughout the meal were really well done and I was very satisfied. The starting champagne, a Bruno Paillard “Assemblage” from 1999, was surprisingly flavourful with deep, rich, baking spices notes. Likewise, the Domaine Weinbach “Clos des Capucins” from 2020 was a fantastic wine that I could easily enjoy on its own.

As we started, we finished with four small bites. A cocoa crunch, a berry-beet tartlet, tres leches, and a yuzu custard with ceremonial matcha. I was fast approaching becoming uncomfortably full. A half hour cab ride home would give me some time to digest, both physically and mentally, from a wonderful meal.

Indeed, this was a fantastic restaurant to put a bow on this adventure.

Now that I’ve reached all of these milestones, I don’t have any future food quests planned. Yes, there are restaurants I’d still love to go to and yes, I’ll still seek out fine dining when travelling but I’ve finished the goals I set out to accomplish. Everything from here on out is—don’t mind the food pun—gravy.

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Grinding

When I first decided to get an espresso machine, I went for a top of the line machine. I wanted something that would last a lifetime. The same applied to the grinder. I bought an ECM V-Titan 64, with titanium-coated flat burrs that are quoted to last at least 50 years before needing to be replaced.

Here I am, 8 years later, and finding myself somewhat frustrated with my grinder.

I make one or two espresso-based drinks a day. As such, it’ll take me a couple weeks, at least, to get through a small bag of beans. If I’m travelling, it could be upwards of a month. If I’m not in the mood for coffee, even longer. Over that time, the beans continue to degass, requiring small adjustments to the grinder each day. That, in itself, isn’t a problem and the grinder does a fantastic job of enabling these minor adjustments. The problem is in the chute design. There is 3 to 4 grams of grind retained in the chute. Not a big deal if I’m doing a number of espressos in a day but trying to dial in necessary adjustments means grinding out a bunch to clear the old stuff before proceeding to grind out what I need. If a bean gets stuck in the grinder (which happens more frequently than I’d like) then I go through an awkward process of cleaning out the grinder, creating more waste.

The workflow was becoming frustrating enough that I decided I needed to switch to a grinder that was optimized for a single dose workflow.

I had been eyeing the Weber EG-1 but, as you can imagine, that price tag is eye watering. Which, looking at the price of the V-Titan these days, is also getting quite pricey. I’m pretty sure I only spent around a thousand dollars on mine.

The espresso subreddit has highly recommended the DF64, which is more reasonable, price-wise, and has plenty of favourable reviews. The DF64 is what I ultimately settled on.

I’ve only had the DF64 for a day, so I’m not at a point where I can enthusiastically endorse it but I am already enjoying it. It takes maybe a couple extra seconds to grind but it isn’t any noisier than the old grinder and I’m getting much less retention—less than half a gram—which is a big part of what I wanted.

Considering the espresso scene these days, it’s easy to fall into an involved process with paper filters and metal screens and OCD tools and WDT tools. While I’ve tried pretty much all of these, I’m finding myself sliding back into a more simplified workflow and the grinder is part of this. My goal is to have a high quality espresso drink within 60 seconds and a reliable workflow makes a huge difference in achieving that.

Tangentially, I’ve been considering getting into pourovers and it’ll be interesting to see how reliably I can change grinder settings and still get consistent results. The Weber definitely sells itself on the flexibility of being able to handle this scenario so if the DF64 doesn’t live up to expectations, the EG-1 might very well be considered.

Anyway, time to get back to the grind…

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Snook.ca is dead, long live Snook.ca!

After a couple years of not putting any revenue into the business, I realized that it was time to say goodbye. I have officially dissolved my corporation, Snook.ca Web Development, Inc.

My personal blog, Snook.ca, marches on.

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The Kind King

Back in the late 80s, my mom bought me a 386sx 16MHz computer equipped with a 2400 baud modem. It was my first computer that enabled me to connect to an online world. Back then, there was large behemoths like AOL and CompuServe but there were also independent services called bulletin board systems, aka BBSs.

A BBS was somewhat of a one-to-one connection. Most independent BBSs had only one or two phone lines with which someone could dial into. They were little islands of community that one could play simple turn-based games or leave messages on, like a physical bulletin board. Once I logged off, somebody else could dial in and leave their messages or take their turn in a game or two.

Given the limited speed of modems of that era, these services were entirely ASCII text-based. ANSI was a superset that included character codes beyond plain text that could change the colour. As a result, rudimentary and blocky graphics (and even animation) were possible. I remember playing a Risk-style game that was ANSI-based called Global War. (Check out those stunning graphics!)

In order to create a distributed system of messages, allowing for communication across a multitude of BBSs, a BBS would have to connect to another BBS and synchronize messages between the two. FidoNet was probably the most popular of these systems.

I even ran my own board running on Telegard called The Jester’s Palace, where I went by the handle The Jester.

The Jester turned out to be a surprisingly popular name and thus, I decided to change my name (and give myself a promotion to boot): I became The Kind King. Looking back, it’s uncreative and embarrassing but I chalk it up to being a dumb teenager.

Warez

In my late teens, I discovered a world of pirated software being distributed via BBSs. Which, when you consider the logistics, is somewhat impressive. In order for software to go from one city to another, a long distance phone call would be made which would cost a lot of money back in those days. (I also used to wear an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time.) To avoid paying such costs, people would use a PBX to (illegally) pass those charges onto large corporations and hope nobody would notice. It is within this world that I also learned about Phreaking and Wardialing.

There was a subculture of people involved in distributing pirated software (uh, warez) that coalesced into groups like Razor 1911, The Humble Guys, and FAiRLiGHT.

Within the software that were being distributed, files were included to let you know who was responsible for releasing the pirated software (and cracking the software, removing any copy protections that might’ve existed).

As a result, an entire art scene formed around these groups as artists worked to outdo each other and promote the hacking groups and the BBSs that distributed the software. Being a creative teenager in high school with too much time on my hands, I began creating ANSi art (the warez scene had a thing for lowercase i’s) and even found myself part of an art group called AiR: ARTiSTS iN REVOLT.

Alas, I lost all of my work from those days. Some googling has uncovered :

I remember my best work as a recreation of the poster from the movie Universal Soldier. I wish I could find that piece again.

Connections

It’s interesting to me to see the connection that came from that creativity and curiosity and how it led me to my career doing design and development.

BBSs were where I met my first roommate, Brent, and with whom we’d end up with a bit of a revolving door of roommates, some of who were also from the warez scene. At one point, our house had probably close to a dozen phone lines running into it with each of us running our own board, and I wonder if the phone company technician wasn’t at least a bit curious why we needed so many lines running into a residential townhouse.

I still have that old 2400 baud modem, tucked away in a box, as a reminder of where it all started.

This trip down memory lane brought on by a post from GReG SToREY. Check out The Art of Warez.

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Split

There’s a certain simplicity to the life of the harried and married with children: the nuclear family with two and a half kids. The day to day is predictably unpredictable with its routines: breakfast, lunch, dinner, work, meetings, daycare, changings, sports, mid-night feedings, music lessons, and so on and so on, day in and day out.

And then we split.

Divorce established two worlds. In one world, I was a parent, taking care of two kids and all the aforementioned duties and then some. The other world, I was single and child-less, relatively free from parenting responsibilities.

That other life was like another dimension: a life spent in the future but only for a few days at a time—days that were often spent in another city, another country, another continent. “Once the kids are on their own, I can travel farther, for longer. Maybe I’ll move somewhere.”

Pre-pandemic, deep within a relationship with a woman from one of those other cities in one of those other countries, I was at the peak of being split in two—being asked to rearrange schedules—defragging the calendar, as it were—to maximize the segments of time in this alternate dimension.

Fifteen years post-separation, I find myself on the cusp of the past meeting the future and returning to a one-dimensional world. My eldest is planning to move out soon. My youngest has one more year of high school left. My ex has relinquished control of the rigid schedules we clung to for a decade and a half.

I still have commitments and obligations. There’s still school and work drop-offs and pick-ups. The schedule has become like a Rorschach test, unclear from week to week or day to day.

Eventually, shortly, the two lives will converge back into one. The nest will be empty and I’ll no longer be split.

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Tasty Coffee

Today’s coffee is tasty—different tasty. It feels thick on the tongue, like a high percentage chocolate, with a bitterness bordering on sweetness. Subtle notes are difficult to find, hidden amongst the clouds of creamy, frothy whole milk that blankets—nay, marries—the espresso. Today is not a day for subtlety. It is a day to be consumed.

And this pain au chocolat ain’t bad, either.

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Turning Fifty

I’ve never been big about celebrating my birthday. I’m not sure why. I don’t recall any childhood trauma around birthday parties. Whatever the reason, my birthdays have come and gone without much fanfare. Perhaps a quick visit to my mom’s where I would be treated to my favourite dessert: Betty Crocker Cherry Chip Cake with French Vanilla icing. Pure nostalgia from when she’d make it when I was a child. If she didn’t make it, I’d make it for myself.

Big milestone birthdays like turning 20, 30, or 40 didn’t really feel important or necessary to especially celebrate, nor did I feel any particular existential dread.

This year is different.

I am turning 50. Thankfully, existential dread has been kept to a minimum. I’ve never really had an issue with aging—although society does tend to look more kindly on older men, beauty-wise. I don’t feel that pressure to stay (or look) young. Good thing, too, because that gray hair is pervasive, if you know what I mean.

I did see this milestone coming, though, and with the 50 Before 50 challenge, I had thought to culminate that adventure with a final dinner on or around my birthday. But I finished that a year ago. Whatever shall I do?

Multiple celebrations.

I’ve got three separate parties planned: One in Ottawa with friends, one at my uncle’s farm with family, and another in NYC with another group of friends. I’m very grateful for the friends and family I have in my life and what better way to celebrate fifty revolutions around the sun on this planet than to hang out with them while enjoying some great food.

Here in Ottawa, I booked Perch, which is one of my favourite restaurants in the city. I’ve been a few times and have always enjoyed their understated yet elevated food experience. And in NYC, I booked Atomix, which is one of my favourite restaurants in the world.

After this, I can go back to small cherry chip celebrations. For isn’t it great to be able to enjoy and celebrate each day we’re on this planet? No need to save it up for one big day of the year. (or, er, half century.)

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Big Boxes

Thirty years ago, I used to work at Toys’R’Us. I really enjoyed that job and sometimes consider returning to a life of stocking shelves. It’s become a bit cliché at this point to hear another tech bro wax on about how they’re going to quit and open a coffee shop, start woodworking, or become a janitor somewhere. This post isn’t that post.

About once a week, an 18-wheeler would back itself up to the truck bay, and then two or three of us would unload every box on that truck as quickly as we could onto a bunch of skids—usually in about 3 hours or so. The store was divided into three sections: the very memorable A, B, and C sections. Everything coming off the truck would be quickly sorted into piles for each section. Work there for a little while and the size and shape of boxes become easily identifiable without even needing to look at labels.

From there, all of that inventory needed to be moved either to the floor (ie: onto store shelves), overstock (the piles of inventory packed 4–6ft high on the very top shelf), or thrown into the back, aka the 500s (the ancient term used to refer to the storage hidden from customers).

I used a specific approach of grabbing the largest boxes from the bay and putting those away first. This created the illusion of faster progress—I could visually see the piles shrink rapidly until all that was left was a small pile of tiny boxes. Selfishly, this created the illusion to management, too, that I was working faster.

To this day, I still do the tasks that look like they have the biggest impact.

When I do the dishes, I do the plates and bowls first, then the glasses, and then the utensils. Doing the big stuff clears off the counter and makes it look like I’m getting the dishes done more quickly. (It’s not an unheard of thing for me to “let the utensils soak”, to be dealt with later.)

When working on an app, I’ll build out the bulk of the front-end before I jump on the backend. I’ll get the easier data types editing and saving before I work on the more complicated form interactions.

They say the last 20% takes 80% of the time and I chalk it up to the big boxes and small boxes. Putting away all the big boxes might look like I did 80% of the work but it’s a visual trick. In reality, there are a lot of small boxes that still need to be put away.

Sure, I might be able to get something that a client can see and interact with within a day or two but the reality is that a quality product means putting away all of the small boxes. That takes time, time that might visually look less impactful but in the end is just as important as everything else.

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