Posts on djwhitebread.com

Halfway through 2026

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It’s already halfway through this year. A lot has gone on this year for Carrie and I, but it is surprising how quickly we got here. When we got back to Austin after being in Baton Rouge for Mardi Gras, it was just March, and here we are.

I took the opportunity after Mardi Gras until we went back to Baton Rouge in June to get very focused on my exercise and nutrition. It was good to have several solid months of schedule. Made some good progress on my fitness goals, and I continue to hit PRs on my lifts at 48 years old, which is pretty cool. I have gotten back to running again, working through some injury issues, so that’s nice. The goal is to complete two half-marathons this fall. One in October in College Station and one in December in New Orleans.

New Year's Eve Ruck

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On New Year’s Eve I decided I wanted to go walk 10 miles with 20lbs in my rucking backpack. I decided on a route that would take me down Far West and up Ladera Norte. If you aren’t familiar with Austin cycling, Ladera Norte is a pretty standard hill climb here in town. It’s very steep, and it provides a good challenge without having to ride out.

I decided that this was the perfect route for my ruck. I headed out with 2 liters of water, some food, and ready to go at 8 AM.

Starting the new year...

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to 2026, and of course the world has craziness waiting for us. As this weekend was my birthday, I wanted to fill it with some fun stuff. I had had a good couple of weeks off from work (including my all-time long rucking adventure, a post on that later), and I got to cap that off with my birthday.

As we go into 2026 I will post my personal goals on here like I did last year, I also want to update everyone on my 2025 goals. Those posts will come in the next couple of weeks.

Finally got the kayak out on the water this fall

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I had the best of plans to get out on the water in my kayak to do some fishing, but a case of food poisoning ruined that a few weeks ago. But with our upcoming trip back to Baton Rouge for the holidays, that left one weekend to get out and try to catch some fish, and I was excited to bring the kayak to Cypress Creek park on Lake Travis to see what I could find.

Half marathon in the books

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I ran my first half marathon in two years today. It was a journey. I’ve had some issues with my hip, and while it flared up for the first 4 or so miles it eventually relaxed and I was able to get through it. I’m very motivated to get through the physical therapy I’ve signed up for this hip thing. My pace got faster as the race went on, but the hip has kept me from running like I had hoped I would in the beginning of the year. I’m hoping to do the ole man river half in Kenner in December. Hopefully the PT will have made some in roads by then.

And now it's October... but with cats!

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

As we are about to head back to Austin for a few weeks, I wanted to take a minute to highlight one of the things that really brings me joy. One of the great things about our neighborhood in Baton Rouge is all the cats. And for the most part, a lot of them are very friendly. Today I wanted to talk about all my cat friends.

This is Asher. He lives in the apartment below us. He’s a very chatty guy. Also, yes, that is a total trap. He doesn’t like his tummy rubbed, even though he will gladly show it to you while he flip flops. He often greets me when I go walking or running in the morning.

How is it the middle of September?

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Wow, I was recapping our trip in the beginning of July and now it’s mid September? The last four weeks have been great from an exercise and nutrition point of view. And now I find myself in Ankara, Turkey!

This time of year really is my favorite. As soon as Labor Day passes, college football starts up, and we can start envisioning days that aren’t brutally hot.

Well I needed to catch up, so here we are. I’ll hopefully get some more interesting pictures from Ankara.

Our European Workcation

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Carrie and I were lucky enough to get to go to the UK and France recently. I was giving part of the keynote in our NI Days UK conference, and we decided to take advantage of the July 4th holidays to go see the start of the Tour de France in Lille, France.

Small villages and towns in the UK are just absolutely lovely. Also, Lille is great. I’d go back to that city in a heartbeat. Here are a section of pictures.

Jackson, WY, friends, mountains... and a bear!

Sun, 22 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last weekend we had the great opportunity to visit our friends in Jackson, Wyoming. One of the best scenic landings at an airport I’ve ever experienced. You fly in right by the Tetons and over all the lakes. It was truly stunning.

We spent our first full day there exploring the southern half of Yellowstone. What a unique place. Between the geysers, the prismatic pools, and bubbling mud, I will definitely not be forgetting that anytime soon.

Back to Austin

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We’re back in Austin. We won’t be headed back to Baton Rouge to live until September. The trip back is always an ordeal, and GiGi was very sleepy last night after we got back.

One of my goals this year was to travel. It’s easy for me to sink into habit. But this summer we have a few trips planned, and I’ll share more here as we get closer. I’m looking forward to them all.

Electrolytes... it's what plants crave

Tue, 03 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Every year when the heat sets in, I feel like one of us learns the lesson the hard way that you have to a) hydrate appropriately and b) get enough electrolytes. This year was apparently my turn.

The past couple of weekends on my long runs on Saturday mornings, I have just been destroyed afterwards. A week ago, I took like a 2.5 hour nap after my run and my stress level on my Garmin never went down. This Saturday I felt ok during the day, but when I woke up Sunday I felt exhausted (though staying up to watch Texas lose at baseball didn’t help). I was really wondering what the issue was.

Back with bread

Tue, 27 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I brought my sourdough starter with us to Baton Rouge this trip because I wanted to make some bread. My sourdough starter’s name is Chad. I was given Chad by a friend many years ago, and it has gone through many periods of being asleep in the fridge. But he is back.

The first loaf I baked the other day came out… ok. It was too dense. It tasted good, but it just didn’t rise like I wanted. Today I made an olive loaf, and I will bake it tomorrow.

Trees

Mon, 19 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve told people before that one of the things that I forget I miss about Baton Rouge and south Louisiana in general is the trees.

Austin has trees. But they’re not the same. They don’t get as big. They don’t get as grand. There are definitely some parts of town that have better canopies, but it gets sparse pretty quickly. Heck, they named the soccer team after oak trees, but they don’t compare.

Back to Baton Rouge

Mon, 12 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We’re back to Baton Rouge for a bit. The days leading up to us switching spots always stress me out, but once we get on the road, it’s crazy, but all that stress just goes away. We got the cats in the cage as soon as we woke up, so that made the process less stressful as well. The drive was good, and it’s always good to be back in Louisiana to spend time with our family and friends.

Time to fish!

Mon, 05 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I will post a recap of NI Connect over on LinkedIn, but with that in the rearview mirror, and us heading back to Baton Rouge next weekend, Sunday was the one chance I was going to have get out on the kayak.

I headed over to Water E. Long lake (also known as Decker lake). It’s been lowered to work on the dam, so there’s no “big” boats out there, and it’s apparently one of the big kayak fishing places in town. I probably got out on the water finally around 9:30 or 10.

NI Connect

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m in Fort Worth this week for NI Connect. I’m looking forward to getting opportunities to talk with our customers. I will also be speaking as part of the keynote on Tuesday morning. This will be the first time I’ve ever gotten to do this and I’m very excited. I love speaking in front of people. I find it very energizing. I’m only out there for a small bit, but I still think it is going to be cool.

Weekends are too short

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“4032”] Carrie and I at Sherwood Forrest Faire [/caption]

We had a great weekend. Friday I flew back from a work trip. I managed to keep myself from getting stranded in Denver by switching to an itinerary through Houston while I was literally on the plane that had gotten delayed going to Denver. Thanks, United Premier 1k service line!

First kayak fish!

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I went out on Lake Austin this morning as this is probably the only day in April I will be able to get out there between Easter and NI Connect. And the best part… I caught the first fish in the kayak! The skunk is off! I mean, they weren’t giants, but it was great to actually get bites and get them in the boat.

The first two were on a drop shot with a 4” Missile Magic Worm in Blueback Secret. The third one was on a 2.75” Swammer on a Dirty Jigs Tactical Mini Underpin 1/8oz. From that point on I couldn’t get anything.

The best long run yet

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When I went to run yesterday I was expecting a 53 minute run. But the Garmin had updated my suggested workouts overnight, so I had a 1 hour 6 minute run waiting for me.

But honestly, I was glad it did. I felt great. That’s the best feeling longer run I’ve done yet since I’ve been running these past few months. I felt strong beginning to end, and I didn’t feel like my hear rate ever spiked when I was going up any of the gradual hills around the neighborhood.

Back to Austin

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Today we transitioned back to Austin. The transition days are always stressful, but today’s was pretty seamless, honestly. The cats did well in the car, and we made it back in 7 hours flat with a stop for gas and lunch.

My run on Saturday got way harder than I expected to, given that I had done the same distance on Wednesday and felt great. I ran 5 days this past week, taking Friday and today (Sunday) off. I ran 18 miles total this week - that’s the most miles I’ve ran in a single week in probably since before we got married when we were training for the 2004 Austin Marathon.

Most intense running week so far

Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This week was definitely the most intense week I’ve had running so far. It started out Monday with a threshold workout. It was basically 15 minutes at the race pace, which the Garmin figured was right at my lactate threshold.

I was very nervous about this workout all weekend. I really wasn’t sure if I could do it or not, but I knew I was going to get out there and give it a shot. I found a route that was mainly flat if even slightly net downhill, just because since it was pace based and not heart rate based, going uphill did me no favors.

Week recap: running, lifting, and 21 years!

Mon, 17 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This week was my first full week of working out that I’ve had in quite some time. I did take one day where I went for a long walk instead of doing a run, but I was really sore from the Bulgarian split squats that I did the day before, and I think it was the right call.

The key is consistent movement, after all, and I figured a 45 minute walk was better than a 30 minute run where I just felt like trash.

Mardi Gras is over, and some running progress

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“5712”] One of the floats in Orpheus [/caption]

Mardi Gras was this week, and as always we had a wonderful time. The parades with their floats and marching bands are always cool to see, but the best part is getting to spend that much time with all our friends.

Rex on Mardi Gras morning was shortened by not having bands because of the weather that blew through later in the day, but Carrie and I have never gotten so many “float beads” than we did this year. Each float in Rex throws their own bead with a medallion that is tied to the theme of that float. Since the crowd was so much lighter due to the weather, we were really able to get a lot of these beads. Definitely one of the cooler things you can catch (that you don’t have to fight for, e.g., a Muses shoe) during Carnival.

Middle of Mardi Gras Weekend

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This post will be short. We’re deep into Mardi Gras activities. We headed back to Baton Rouge this evening as we are both working tomorrow, and then we’ll head back to New Orleans in the evening for Orpheus and to watch Rex on Mardi Gras morning.

It’s been great to see everyone and to get in some of the parades. The parades are a blast, but they are exhausting. I love Mardi Gras, but come Tuesday night I am glad that it is over. Definitely not something you want to do all the time. But that’s part of the magic of it. It does just come once a year. There’s wisdom in the seasons, not everything needs to be available all the time.

Transition week

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“4032”] GiGi needed extra snuggles the morning after driving to Baton Rouge. [/caption]

It’s always weird when we transition from Austin to Baton Rouge (and vice versa). This time is particularly odd since I will be heading back to Austin for work for a few days in the middle of the week. And then you throw in the extra craziness of Carnival, and it has been (and will continue to be) weird.

First trips in the kayak!

Mon, 17 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We spent this weekend out at lake LBJ with some friends. My friend brought his new fishing kayak, and I brought mine. The Bronco Sport was pretty full on the way out there. This trip was the longest distance I’ve driven with the kayak, so I was a little nervous on the way out, but it held up fine. Friday morning I took the kayak out in the cold and hit the lake.

Motor Deploy System Finished, Car Rack Success, and more!

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“5712”] The PWR129 stripped down on top of the Bronco Sport. [/caption]

First off, I did a test run of getting the kayak up on the Bronco Sport, getting it strapped in, and driving it around the neighborhood. It’s a little bit of work out (I have something on the way that should help with that, more on that in a later post), but I got it up. Once all the straps are tightened it doesn’t want to go anywhere. It will be interesting to take it on the highway. Also, this practice run allowed me to work out some ordering issues (for example, you can’t load anything through the tail gate once you tie down the back) and work through the packing checklist. I didn’t know how easy the loading and unloading process was going to be, but now I feel confident that I have it under control.

In Boston

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I’m in Boston for a few days for a work meeting. When I have traveled for work in the past it’s almost been exclusively overseas, so it was always at least 5 days if not seven or more. This trip is two nights… fly up, meet, come home. Not bad. I would like to make it back up here at some point as a tourist.

When we were landing we swung over the Atlantic and came in from the east and while we were over the ocean the mist coming off the water was interacting with the setting sun in a crazy way. Just wanted to share that.

Continued progress on the kayak

Mon, 27 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

One big step taken this weekend which is I got the crossbars and cradles put on the Bronco Sport. These are the Yakima cross bars with their Big Catch cradles - the only kayak mount that is actually rated to hold modern fishing kayaks. It’s nice as well because it came with all the straps necessary to secure the kayak. I think I will have to adjust the cross bars a little to get as much distance as possible between them, but that’s an easy fix. I want to give a huge thanks to The Rack Shop. I showed up at 1:30, with them closing at 2, hoping to just make an appointment, and my man went ahead and stayed and got it installed on the spot. Amazing! If you need any sort of rack or accessories, go check them out!

Kayak progress... power!

Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Today I had some time to work on the kayak. Last week when I posted I was still trying to figure out where to put the circuit breaker for the main motor circuit. You want it close to the power source, but there really wasn’t a good spot. I looked into some options of trying to create something, but it wasn’t panning out.

Then I discovered that you can buy battery boxes that have a circuit breaker installed in them. This concept was perfect. It was the right size to still fit in the battery well behind the seat, it put the breaker adjacent to the battery, and it gave the battery some protection from water. I ordered one of those and it showed up early in the week. I also had gotten my crimpers and wire strippers in the mail this week, so I had everything I needed.

The Kayak has arrived!

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“4032”] The Bonafide PWR 129 right after I got it home. [/caption]

After several years of planning, I have finally acquired my kayak! It’s a Bonafide PWR 129, and I am really excited about this boat. The above picture was right after I got it home. Huge shoutout to TG Canoes and Kayak down in San Marcos for hooking me up with this thing!

2025 Goals

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“4032”] Me in front of a palace in Vienna, Austria. I was lucky enough to get to go on a quick trip to Austria for work this year. [/caption]

While November of 2024 didn’t exactly pan out like I was hoping, I want to make sure that I set goals for 2025 to try to improve myself. I can’t control a lot of things in this world. But I can control me, and I want to end 2025 in a better state than I started it.

We made it on the plane!

Mon, 05 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We’re on the plane heading back to the USA. 🇺🇸 It’s been fun, Europe, but it’s time to go see our cats!

Didn’t see this coming

Sun, 04 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Woke up this morning to our flights out of Zurich being cancelled. We had been rebooked, but since we were on separate reservations, the system had put us on separate itineraries. So I spent a while on the phone with United, but the guy I talked to was very helpful and got us all rebooked. I even got some of the miles I used on Carrie’s ticket back? Airline fare rules are so weird.

We are done!

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We’re waiting for the train to leave Chamonix, and I definitely have mixed feelings. I’m sad to leave this beautiful place with the amazing food, great wine, and just mind blowing natural beauty. But I’m also looking forward to getting back to our house, our cats, and our friends and family.

We ended up hiking 7 miles yesterday, with a pretty steep climb that allowed us to skip the ladders. We had a rain storm come through (though we luckily dodged the thunderstorm that came through across the valley). We also used our water filter bottle for the first time to get water out of a mountain waterfall. But it was a good hike, and we topped it off taking a cable car down from the mountain.

Crossed into Switzerland yesterday, rest day today

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Yesterday we crossed from Italy into Switzerland on foot, which is a crazy thing to say. I ate an energy bar on an international border, while staring down a valley where I could see another international border. Wild.

It was a very pretty hike, but it was the first time my fear of heights kicked in. I had a panic on this one part where I had a hard time putting one foot in front of the next and moving my poles. It was something about the angle of the trail and the very steep we were on. But I pushed through and once we turned the corner up the switchback the feeling subsided.

Calling an audible for a short hike

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We’re going to take advantage of the free bus to go for a short hike today. This way we’ll get to see some of the scenery, but not have to be out all day. Courmayeur is absolutely lovely, and our hotel here is amazing. I’ll report back again this evening.

The day hike was a great call

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m so very glad we decided to go do a shortened day hike today. The scenery was the most postcard-worthy things we have seen yet. We took the bus down, and after about 2k of solid uphill we were rewarded with the most amazing panoramic view I think I have ever seen (this shot doesn’t do it justice, the album has the pano shot I took).

We had a light lunch of spec and brie sandwiches, an espresso, and a delicious piece of apple cake.

Day 2 was great… until it wasn’t 🤣

Sun, 28 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Day 2 started well. Generally we had our nutrition better situated and our water plan was better (definitely both could be better). Amazing views crossing the Col de Bonhomme.

Once we were done with the climbing, however, we realized that we only had 45 minutes to make it to our taxi. I also misread the instructions so I thought we had less distance to where the taxi was.

At some point on the descent Carrie and I decided to split up and I would try to get down as quickly as possible to hopefully catch the taxi driver and try to convince him to wait for Carrie. It was during this process I realized there were several more kilometers to go down than I had previously thought. I went hard and when I got to the taxi guy (who was still there, thank goodness) I had to use my very bad French to make sure it was our guy. He eventually smiled and told me not to worry and that he would wait for Carrie no problem.

Today we start hiking…

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I’m very excited to start hiking but I’m also pretty nervous. We’ve been planning this for so long and now we are about to just start walking to our next hotel that’s 9 miles away. Crazy…

Our time in Chamonix has been great. Glad we get to come back here one more night at the end.

I will hopefully figure out the Garmin links today. If not I’ll hope to get them going tomorrow.

Well that was hard

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Today was something else. The short version: we didn’t eat enough and probably didn’t have enough water. All things that can be fixed (former cyclist Taylor is judging current Taylor for making such a rookie mistake). The views were amazing, however. And honestly, I felt pretty great other than the last hour.

The internet isn’t great here, so this will be text only. The hotel we are at is super cute and supper was included which was nice.

Travel update

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For those following along, we had a great couple of days in the Netherlands. 🇳🇱 We are currently traveling to Zurich to see some friends there and tomorrow we head into the Alps at Chamonix in France. 🇫🇷

Will report more once we get settled in Chamonix.

Tour Du Mont Blanc here we come!

Fri, 19 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“4032”] Henri (the black one) and GiGi (the gray one) relax in a rare moment of snuggling that didn’t lead to fighting. We’ll miss our kitties on our trip, but they’re in good hands! [/caption]

Personal Goals for 2020

Fri, 03 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I always thought to myself, “Yeah, I have goals…” But I never wrote them down, or told anybody about them, or really thought much about it. I mean, there were big things I knew I wanted to do… get married, graduate from grad school, get a job, etc. But I never really thought about it on a yearly or monthly basis, “What’s the thing that I need to be doing right now?”

Here we are...

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Well, today is the last day of 2019, and it appears that I didn’t write anything here all year. It was an interesting year for various reasons. Some good, some bad.

I always used to put a picture of Pierre on these posts, but unfortunately we had finally say goodbye to our little old man this year. It was tough - I had had him for 17 years. That’s 17 years of coming home and having him run up to me and say hello. That’s a long time to all of a sudden not see him.

My Introduction to the World of Smoking Meat

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

One of my goals for the year was to learn how to smoke a brisket. True, wood-fired barbecue is one of the main culinary traditions of Central Texas, especially barbecuing beef brisket. The time had finally come for me to get an offset smoker, a “stick-burner” as they are called, and start this journey into a new cooking genre. Three weeks ago, I (along with some help getting it home from my fellow National Instruments Meat Guild members) acquired an Old Country BBQ Pits Pecos:

Baby Back Ribs in the sous vide

Sat, 11 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have had good success with the pork shoulder in the sous vide, and I was curious how baby back ribs would turn out. It seemed like it would work without requiring as much time in the sous vide (the shoulder takes a 24 hour dip in the bath). So I used the pork shoulder recipe at chef steps.com as a starting point. (Funny side note, in just looking this up I saw that they actually have a baby back rib recipe. It varies slightly from what I did, so I may have to give this another try.)

Writing, exercise, and what the heck happened to the country?

Thu, 02 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I fired up the ol’blog. November of 2015, in fact. Ah, those were simpler times. I had just discovered that you can sous vide a pork shoulder and make it taste like it came out of a smoker. I had just started singing in the choir at church. Oh, and the president wasn’t a fascist narcissist with a white supremacist as one of his main advisors. Good times.

Pork Shoulder

Sat, 07 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

As anybody who has read my blog knows, I’m a big fan of cooking things sous vide. It’s one of the best ways to get meat to be tender and juicy. Another place on the internet that loves sous vide is chefsteps.com. I have been very intrigued by their Smokerless Smoked Pork Shoulder for a while (they also do a brisket, but the pork butt seemed like a safer first step).

I basically followed their steps exactly. Their webpage is really nice because you can change one of the ingredients, and it scales all the rest to match. My pork butt was only about 2kg so I scaled the entire recipe down 50%.

Getting Healthy Update

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

So it’s been about a month since I first posted about this. Good progress was made. While that first week was brutal, I felt much better the second week and the weight continued to fall off. I was at 211 going into the wedding, and my tux and vest fit. The pants were a little snug, but nothing uncomfortable.

I decided the wedding weekend and the week after would be a cheat week to give myself a mental break and try to squash some of the cravings. Though, to be honest, I was ready to get back to meat and veggies by the end of it. We have been eating so many vegetables that I quickly started craving vegetables during the cheat week.

Finally had to do something

Mon, 28 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I hope people have enjoyed my posts about baking stuff. Unfortunately those will be the last ones of that sort for a while.

I’m not sure how many people know, but a few years back I won a free year membership to Pure Austin Gym because I lost a lot of weight and became passable as an amateur bike racer. I was on my bike 10+ hours a week, and while I did change my diet some, I mainly just ate real food and exercised a ton.

A new breakfast pastry experiment

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I love big breakfast. It’s just a thing I got from my parents. This past Sunday morning, I was up early and wanted to make something different. I have done biscuits more times that I can count, I had just done waffles a few weeks ago (and they take forever), so I was looking for something different.

I started flipping through Carrie’s One Bowl Baking book looking for ideas, because she and I made the double-chocolate muffins out of here and they were delicious. I found the corn muffin recipe and this sounded like a good call. We had all the ingredients on hand, and it seemed like a good combination of things for a breakfast muffin.

The tide turns...

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Tomorrow marks the last day where the average temperature in Austin goes up. The average temperature starting Saturday starts to go down, albeit very slowly for the month of August. But for people like me who put up with this time of year begrudgingly, it’s a welcome day.

Biscuits done right

Sat, 25 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’m not sure if people remember my biscuit fail post, but it had been a while since then and I hadn’t had the opportunity to make biscuits lately. I decided I would make a fresh batch this weekend. I also had some buttermilk leftover from the eggplant dish, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I used a combination of white wheat, AP, and rye flour. Instead of the yogurt that I normally put in I used buttermilk.

The Amazing Eggplant

Fri, 24 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

We had some friends over for dinner this past weekend, and we decided that this was a great time to cook up the several eggplant we had hanging out in the garden. Wanting a different take on the purple nightshade I turned to Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi. The recipe we found was a eggplant tricolore, a take on an Italian classic. It turned out fantastic.

One of the things that I noticed in making this was a theory I had about eggplant for a while (and one that had been pushed along by many cooking shows) was that for eggplant to be tasty you have to get the water out. For this recipe I used the convection roast at like 375˚F for 30 minutes with them up on a wire rack over my pan to get the airflow on both sides. The steam was pouring out the oven vent almost the entire time. By the end they were very shriveled and brown, but they tasted great and weren’t bitter. So remember, with eggplant water is the enemy.

Our European Jaunt

Fri, 17 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

First of all, we had a great time. We stayed busy, and it was incredibly hot in Paris. But overall, it was great to see a few new places (for me at least), and as always great to see our friends living in Europe.

I really wanted to get this post out of the way so that I wouldn’t be stuck in posting. That seems to be how it always happens. You have something you want to write about, and you put off writing about it because it was a big deal, and then you never write anything else. I did not want that to happen.

First two days in Romania

Tue, 23 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

First off, let me say how much I love Lufthansa. They give you food on short, regional flights. I appreciate that. And it’s real food, with hearty bread. The picture on the right I think is Budapest, as the captain mentioned we’d be flying over it shortly, and this was the biggest thing out the window at that time.

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“2448”] Real food on a 1.5 hour flight. Amazing, much love to the Germans. [/caption]

Salmon and Fire

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Copper River Salmon is my favorite salmon. I still remember the first time I had some copper river. It was in Seattle with my parents on our last hurrah family vacation the summer after my first year of graduate school. I didn’t know salmon could taste like that. It was the first properly-cooked, wild-caught salmon I had ever tasted. When Carrie and I saw that Costco had wild-caught Copper River Sockeye for sale a few weeks ago, I had to get some. I went ahead and grilled it, along with some mushrooms. All I did was put some salt and lemon on it. With salmon that has so much flavor, you don’t need a lot of extras. The fire video below is just me playing with the SloMo on the iPhone 6. (I recommend going to the Vimeo page to view it in HD if it won’t let you view HD on the embedded player.)

Sometimes you just have to have breakfast tacos for supper

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

And it’s glorious. Basically, we needed to make some salsa with garden tomatoes and my fake jalapeños. Seemed like breakfast tacos were the way to go.

A meal of experiments for friends

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I have wanted to sous vide steak for a while. It seemed like something that didn’t make sense for a random Tuesday, and Carrie’s not a big steak fan anyway. With Carrie out of town this weekend I invited some of my old UT Cycling team friends over for supper, to catch up, and to play some video games.

One cannot have only steak for a meal, so I decided to make macaroni and cheese from scratch. I had always wanted to do this, so out to the internet I went. I decided to base my batch off of Alton Brown’s baked macaroni and cheese.

Chainsaws (without cords) are Amazing

Wed, 10 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Hackberry trees are terrible. Well, they may have uses other places, but in Austin they mainly act like weeds on steroids. At some point in the early spring, we went from being able to see our back fence, to not being able to see it. It was a hackberry explosion.

I had been meaning to get out there for a while and cut them down. But that would require me using my little chainsaw, and it is corded. I had picked up a bunch of Ryobi 40V cordless stuff, and I just didn’t want to use anything with a cord anymore. So the other weekend, I went pick up this at the Home Depot:

The tale of the failed biscuits

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Many people know that I really enjoy a good biscuit. Several years ago I decided that Bisquick couldn’t be that hard to produce, and decided to look up some good biscuit recipes on the internet. I wanted a completely-from-scratch biscuit. It had to start with all standard ingredients that we would normally have around the house (e.g. flour, butter, salt, etc.) and be relatively straight-forward to produce (i.e. I didn’t want to have to spend 2 hours making biscuits).

Lazy + Impatient Occasionally Wins

Thu, 04 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Today I experienced the future we were promised, a.k.a. Amazon Prime Now. I wanted to try something out on my Mac that required a flash drive, and a coworker suggested a Kensington model with no silly moving plastic parts. I liked it, and decided to check Prime Now to see if they had it.

They did! So since there is a $15-minimum-order rule, my coworker said to get him one as well. I placed the order on the app, and it told me it would be here b/w 2 and 4 PM.

A quick love letter to cycling...

Wed, 03 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A few years ago I basically gave up bike riding. After having spent several years racing on and off, I had spent the better part of 2 years spending a lot of time on the bike, I got thin, got fit, and then decided that I was just tired of it.

I wasn’t sure if it was watching a guy and his bike bounce down a hill (separately, but amazingly synchronized) at the last race I ever did. Or maybe it was the two people who rode into the shoulder while basically looking right at me in one week commuting home. Regardless, I was done cycling.

Restarting Again

Sun, 31 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to djwhitebread.com 3.0. Carrie has been telling recently that I should start a “lifestyle blog.” Apparently, these are a thing. Fair enough.

The joke was that I would call it, “What’s fermenting now?” My fermentation game hasn’t quite been up to par as of late, unfortunately. So what the heck am I going to do here, you ask? Make a hopefully useful attempt at showing the things that I find make life interesting. I am not much of a builder, but I do like to create things (and these things mostly can be eaten or imbibed). I like to play golf, I like to ride my bike, and I like men’s fashion. I also love to travel and see and eat and drink new things. So here we go.