Friday night. What could be better for a simple dinner on a frosty night, while sitting on the sofa watching a DVD, than Flammkuchen – German pizza?

Flammkuchen – literally, “flame cake” – is a dish from the Alsace-Lorraine region (much of which bounced back and forth between France and Germany over the last couple of centuries).

Flammkuchen is made like a thin-crust pizza, topped with crème fraîche, onions, and Speck - a salt-cured and lightly smoked ham. My first taste of Flammkuchen came about two decades ago while Irina and I were staying in Cousin Axel’s  Bauernhof right in the heart of the small German village of Oberotterbach.

Elements of Axel’s “farm” house – like the rear wall, which the house shares with the town Catholic church and cemetery – date from the 13th century. All the while we stayed there those church bells pealed every fifteen minutes, all day and all night long. It’s enough to make one an atheist.

It really was and still is a farm house, dead square in the middle of town. Behind those big doors are a central courtyard; barns, stalls, and sheds; tractors and wagons; a well; a kitchen garden; and a wine and root cellar beneath the living quarters. Farmers live in the village, and sortie out to their fields each day.

Oberotterbach lies just across the border from the French town of Wissembourg, which marks the start of the Deutsche Weinstrasse. Here’s the Deutsches Weintor through which we drove back and forth from Germany to France in our ancient, borrowed Fiat Cinquecento.

The border control station was just on the other side of the “wine gate”. The border controls were pretty much of a joke, as they were easily circumvented. Rather than staying on the main road, instead take one of the numerous back roads that crisscross the border through the vineyards.

 We often walked the ~4 km to Wissembourg from Oberotterbach avoiding roads completely, through the vineyards and over the shoulder of the Sonnenberg. During our stay there, EU borders were opened and the inspection stations between Germany and France shuttered.

Back to Flammkuchen. A cramped corner of the vaulted cellar of the oldest house in Oberotterbach – which served for agricultural storage as well as a dwelling – housed (and still houses!) a jazz club called the Musikantebuckl.

Along with the music they served local beer, local wine, and Flammkuchen baked in a wood-fired pizza oven. Love at first bite: I was closer to heaven than a kid from Sacramento could reasonably expect to find himself.

It’s easy to recreate a bit of that heaven here, even though Speck isn’t available. Some recipes call for bacon, but we find bacon too fatty and too smokey. We have found that the uncured side of pork we get when we buy a half a hog  – which would be bacon if it were smoked – works just fine once it’s trimmed of all fat.

Flammkuchen à La Ferme Noire

For two 12″ Flammkucken:

1 lb Irina’s bread dough
½ lb well-trimmed pork belly, cut into small cubes
1 medium red onion
6 oz  crème fraîche (we use the delicious crema Mexicana that is available locally)
Sea salt
Crushed black pepper
A small piece of a whole nutmeg, crushed.

Place the dough on a well-floured surface. Divide into two pieces and roll into balls, coating liberally with flour. Flatten a bit with the palm of your hand, and roll out with a pizza roller, dusting with additional flour as necessary.

This dough is really wet, so it demands a bit of special care for the process to go smoothly. When you’ve finished rolling the skins out, make sure they are well-dusted with flour. Fold into halves, then quarters; place on a board covered with waxed paper (we use a couple of pieces of Masonite cut into 12″ x 12″ squares), unfold, and set aside to rise for an hour or so and to dry on top a bit.

While the dough is resting, rising, and drying, trim any fat off the pork and cut the meat into small cubes. Put the cubes of meat in a bowl, add salt, crushed pepper, and crushed nutmeg, and toss until the meat is evenly coated. Peel the onion and cut into thin strips, separating the layers.

About a half hour before cooking, put your pizza stone into the oven to pre-heat. You’ll want to use a very hot oven (like 500°). We most often cook pizza outdoors on a gas barbeque, especially in the summer when you don’t want to be heating up the kitchen.

While the oven and pizza stone are getting hot, prepare the Flammkuchen. The pizza skins must be transferred to a make-up board. We use larger and thicker pieces of Masonite for this purpose, 16″ x 24″ x ¼”; the ample size of the make-up board allows plenty of room to get the pizza sliding around freely before sliding it onto the hot pizza stone to bake. First sprinkle the make-up board liberally with corn meal (the corn meal acts like little ball bearings on which the pizza can roll around). Then flip the pizza skin on top of the corn meal so it’s waxed-paper side up, and peel off the waxed paper.

Spread the crème fraîche over the pizza skins. Sprinkle evenly with the onions, then with the seasoned meat. Tap the side of the make-up board to make sure the pizza is sliding free, then slide the pizza off the make-up board and onto the hot pizza stone.

Close the cover (or the oven door) and bake until the crust is browned and crispy. And as my dear departed father would say, video camera in hand, here we are.

We had planned to save one of the two Flammkuchen in the freezer for another day, but it tasted so darn good we ate them both!

We have made vegetarian versions of Flammkuchen too, substituting local wild mushrooms (from The Mushroomery) for the pork. While not traditional, it’s really delicious, too.

Arctic temperatures set a new record high in 2011, beating the record set just the previous year in 2010.

Surface temperature anomaly for the region extending from 64oN to 90oN, from 1880 through 2011, in degrees Centigrade above or below the temperature during the 1951-1980 base period.  

The annual mean surface temperature (land and air) for the region north of 64oN (the Arctic Circle is at 66° 33′N) in 2011 was 2.28° C above the 1951-1980 base period, beating 2010′s record of 2.11° C.  Temperatures in the region have been rising rapidly since the late 1970s and have not dropped below the long-term mean since 1992 — nearly 20 years.

Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record – and the warming is especially concentrated in the Arctic.

Annual global surface temperature anomalies, 2011.  The largest and most extensive
warming (indicated in shades of red) was concentrated in the Arctic.
Source: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

NASA’s James Hansen expects record-breaking global average temperatures in the next two to three years because solar activity is on the upswing and the next El Niño will increase tropical Pacific temperatures. The warmest years on record so far were 2005 and 2010, in a virtual tie.

The carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was about 285 parts per million in 1880, when the GISS global temperature record begins. By 1960, the average concentration had risen to about 315 parts per million. Today it exceeds 390 parts per million and continues to rise at an accelerating pace.

Rising temperatures are being accompanied by a decline in Arctic ice volume.

Ice volume for December 2011 was 12,230 km³ , 47% lower than the maximum in 1979, 37% below the mean and 1.6 standard deviations from trend. PIOMAS  ice volume for September 2011 was 380 km³ lower than the previous record of 2010, but this difference is within the estimated uncertainty of PIOMAS. The same appears to be true for December 2011 as well – ice volume is lower but within the range of uncertainty – as the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center reports 2011 volume is lower than the previous record of 2010.

The Federal Highway Administration’s Traffic Volume Trends reports travel on U.S. roads and streets was down 0.9% for November 2011 as compared with November 2010. Cumulative travel for 2011 was down 1.4% from 2010 through November.

In the early ’80s, VMT (moving 12 months total) stayed below the previous peak for 39 months. Currently VMT (moving 12 months total) has been below the previous peak for 48 months – a full 4 years – and the trend shows no sign of reversing any time soon.

Could it be that the all-time peak in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. – August 2007 – is now securely behind us?

In Oregon, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) was down 0.4% in November 2011 compared to November 2010. Cumulative VMT for 2011 is down 2.0% from 2010. VMT in Oregon has been down every month in 2011 compared to 2010.

With VMT down, it’s not surprising that Americans continue to consume less gasoline. Total petroleum deliveries fell 1.1% in November compared with November a year ago, pulled down by a 1.8 percent decline in motor gasoline demand.  It was the lowest level of November consumption for gasoline since 2000.

Total petroleum deliveries fell 1.2% to an average of 18.9 million barrels a day in 2011 compared with 2010. Except for 2008, this was the largest drop in annual domestic deliveries over the past decade.

If petroleum deliveries are any indicator, VMT will prove to continue to drop in December 2011 – and substantially. December 2011 petroleum deliveries were down 5.9% from December 2010, declining to an average of 18.6 million barrels per day, the lowest level in 15 years. The Federal Highway Administration’s report for December can be expected confirm that VMT for 2011 as a whole is down over 2010.

After a barren spell in November, our Muscovy ducks are laying again. Keeping a light on in the duck shed until 10:00 every night seems to have made a difference, as they began laying again shortly after we began that regimen.

Some of the ducks are content to lay in the duck shed. When we open the doors to let the ducks out in the morning (having been shut in over night to protect them from predators) there the eggs are, in the nests the ducks nestle into the straw in the corners of the shed. All we have to do is bend down and pick them up.

For other ducks, laying their eggs in the duck shed simply won’t do. So they seek out less convenient places. Some locations become semi-permanent, and they revisit them regularly: underneath the outdoor workbench behind the potting soil containers, behind the garbage and recycling cans, underneath the tarp covering the compost pile.

A few hens, however, are really secretive. They don’t want you to know where they are laying their eggs, and if you discover one location they tend to abandon it and find yet another. When the duck shed door is opened in the morning these secretive hens set off: alone, determined, and with a purpose. If you want to find their eggs, you have to follow them, and do so carefully and innocuously.  If they see they’re being followed, they will abort their clandestine mission. And if you divert your attention for just a moment they can vanish, disappearing into the brush.

Meet one of our surreptitious hens.

After watching this hen for several mornings I finally succeeded in tracing her to her nest right in the middle of a pile of brush and prunings waiting to be burned. And I do mean right in the middle. I had to carve my way in, using hand shears to tunnel a passageway through the bramble. Stretched out flat on my belly with only my ankles hanging out, I retrieved eight eggs.

Crawling on my belly like a reptile to find eggs simply wouldn’t do. I set a torch to that pile. She’ll never use that nest again.

The next day, that hen once more set out for her burn pile. What few coals remained of that pile were still smoldering. She circled it again and again, repeatedly coming back to and stopping at what had been her entrance. You could almost see her scratching her head: what the hell happened here?

Still, every morning she’s setting off towards where her burn pile used to be. There’s got to be a new nest. One morning I’m trying to follow two hens. Our burn pile hen disappears behind a copse of trees and brush. I rush to see where she’s gone. Damn, lost them both!

This morning, she’s off again. I’m keeping a loose tail. When I see her round that copse, I high-tail it over there. She sees me, pretends she’s just out on a stroll. But I’ve seen where she’s been looking, where she was headed.

That’s an abandoned wood rat mound, next to an old, rotting Douglas-fir stump. A little searching, and there it is, nestled under and inside the wood rat mound: her latest nest, containing a half a dozen eggs.

Another victory, albeit temporary. Tomorrow the game begins anew.

When you buy a whole or a half lamb from a local farmer, it’s not like going to the supermarket where you can pick out the exact cut you want, whether it be shoulder chops, loin chops, or a leg. Around here, you’re lucky to find a store that carries any lamb at all. In the mid-valley, the nearest place to buy a choice cut like a leg or a rack is probably Corvallis, at an upscale market such as Market of Choice.

When you buy local locker lamb, (half or whole) you get everything – from the neck to the shanks. You have to know how to cook the various cuts, as they each demand to be treated differently. And when it comes to an valuable cut like a rack, you don’t want to ruin it. Unlike a rack you buy at a market that’s been trimmed by a butcher, you cannot simply throw it in the oven and roast it. The rack has to be prepped for cooking first. If your rack comes wrapped in white paper from your local slaughterhouse, you have to prep it yourself.

A rack of lamb comes with a thick layer of fat across the back.

You have to take that layer of fat off. Leave it on and the rack will be impossible to cook properly. What’s more, the result will be a rack that is difficult to cut and serve; and the meat will be drenched in excess, unpleasant-tasting fat.

Fortunately, removing the layer of fat is easy. Simply grab it by one corner and rip it off – it comes off in one piece.  Begin by separating the fat from the meat with a knife at a corner, then pull on the fat, continuing to cut between the fat and the meat with a knife as necessary as you pull the fat off.

Now doesn’t that look better?

There’s some meat embedded within that layer of fat that shouldn’t be wasted. Trim it out rather than throwing it away.

There’s more . . .

You’ll end up with a nicely trimmed rack, a little pile of lamb meat – enough for maybe a soup or a burrito or a stir fry – and a big chunk of fat to be thrown out.

If you want, you can cut out a little of the meat between the rib bones, leaving little bone handles to grab onto when eating. Add that meat to your pile of saved meat trimmings.

We’ve trained our butcher to cut off the chine bone, and he mostly gets it right. With the chine bone off, it’s a simple thing to cut between the ribs, carving off individual chops for serving when the rack is done. If the chine bone is left on the rack, this is impossible – so you have to make sure the chine bone is removed completely at this stage. If some of it is still there you’d best cut it off. A hacksaw works. The picture above shows the chine bone properly removed.

Now the rack is almost ready for roasting. Rub it with sea salt and freshly crushed pepper. Chop up a clove of garlic or two, and the leaves from a nice sprig of rosemary. Put in a bowl with a teaspoon of prepared stone-ground mustard and a splash of red wine.  Whisk in an ounce or so of olive oil. Coat the rack on all sides with the marinade and let sit at room temperature for a while, until you’re ready to pop it in the oven.

Roast the rack in a pre-heated 450° oven for 20 minutes or so, or until the internal temperature reaches 116° (check with an instant-reading thermometer).  Do not overcook! Rack of lamb should be served rare. Remove the rack to a serving dish and let it rest for a few minutes while you get the rest of the meal on the table and prepare the sauce. The sauce can be really simple -deglaze the roasting pan with a healthy splash of red wine, scraping up all the tasty brown bits.  Carve the rack, cutting between and separating the individual riblets. Pour the sauce around the rack and serve.

Bon Appétit!

January 11, 2012 was the 125th anniversary of the birth of author, scientist, ecologist, forester, and environmentalist Aldo Leopold. Leopold is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac.

Leopold professed an ethics founded on the biotic community – a community encompasses and includes humans:

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

Leopold rejected the utilitarianism of conservationists like Gifford Pinchot and Theodore Roosevelt, who pursued a conservationism based on expediency, conquest, and self-interest. Leopold was instead an advocate of wilderness, and of its conservation for its own sake. For Leopold, the relationship of humans to the land was an ethical one.

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. . . . The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.

Leopold saw that humans are part of an ecological community. He saw that humans can thrive only if the entirety of the larger community of which we a part thrives.

But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. . . . Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings.

Leopold preached “an intelligent humility toward man’s place in nature”, and warned that we should not stray too far from the land.

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

Leopold was a prophet for our times. We should have listened.

Thursday morning (January 5), our first lambs of the season were born, twins – a male and a female. At first, things looked to be going fine. Each was strong and healthy, although the male was a bit bigger than the female; and mama was feeding both. But Friday evening, we noticed that mama was no longer holding still for the female to let her feed. She was now markedly smaller than the male, who had been growing and putting on weight. She was looking weak. If we didn’t do something, she wasn’t going to make it.

Irina fixed a self-feeding bottle for her, but milk replacer is not a satisfactory solution. Even if you can get the lamb to drink from the bottle and feed itself, formula just isn’t nearly as good as mother’s milk. Lambs don’t grow as much or as fast, and they never catch up from a slow start to become big, healthy adult sheep.

That night, I dreamt of sheep grooming stands. The headpiece would hold mama still while our little black lamb snuck in and suckled to her heart’s content. Next morning, I went straight to the computer and googled “sheep grooming stand”, looking for inspiration. This design I found promising:

The concept is simple, the device quick and easy to use, and effective. Kind of like “stocks” for recalcitrant livestock.

So first thing Saturday morning I went to work, using scrap lumber and remnants of a dismantled dish antenna. The device was designed to be installed in the railings separating the two pens so as to be usable from either pen. It was ready to be put into service right after lunch.

Mama may not be happy, but baby sure is. Five times a day, Malingering Mama is in lockdown for nursing.

Results were immediate. She’s strong and healthy again, and quickly catching up to her brother.

Sunday morning, we woke up to a bit of a hullabaloo. Four new lambs were scattered about the yard, two white and two black. Lambs were bawling, mamas were baaing. We gathered up the lambs from the mud, cleaned them up, then set out to sort things out, figure out who belonged to whom.

Finding the mamas was pretty straightforward. Pick up the lambs, put them in the lambing pens, and the mamas should follow. That part went smoothly. Problem was, we only had one open lambing pen. The other was occupied by Malingering Mama – if she was minding her young ones properly, she could instead be let out with the flock. Crammed into a single pen, the new mamas were butting each other. Little lambs were flying. So we had to quickly erect an emergency, auxiliary pen and separate the combatants. Then came the hard part: which lambs belonged with which mama? After careful watching, seeing who was being fed by whom, Irina finally figured out the highly improbable solution: one mama had had triplets, all female, two white and one black; the other, a single female.

So at the moment, all is calm in the sheep shed.

This morning (January 10), Malingering Mama was observed freely feeding her female lamb, without being restrained. Maybe she was just suffering from a bout of post-partum depression. A release date is pending, depending on continued good behavior.

Old friends from Seattle days, who now live near Hillsboro, were coming to visit this last weekend, along with their son home from college during break. As a special treat, we pulled a package of moose roast, labeled “strap steak”, from the freezer. Saturday morning, I unwrapped it to begin preparing it for cooking. Lo and behold, a flank steak! Of moose!

Flank steak holds special status in our home. The first meal I fixed for Irina back when we were courting was a beef flank steak, cooked over coals on little hibachi at my bachelor pad in Winslow, cooked rare and sliced thin, served with Brussels sprouts, steamed just crisp. Guys: quite the thing to impress the ladies. It worked!

Three exclamation points already, a bit much. But the sentences are true and righteous exclamations – and it gets better. We had already procured special mushrooms for the meal: white elm, and wild hedgehog and chanterelles from The Mushroomery. Grilled flank steak of moose, served with a rich mushroom sauce and mashed potatoes.

First, the sauce.

Wild Mushroom Sauce

4 T goose fat (or duck fat, or butter)
¾ lb. wild or good quality mushrooms, brushed and coarsely chopped
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 T flour
1 C red wine
1 C beef stock
½ C tomato purée
bouquet garni (parsley, celery greens, thyme, bay leaf)
1 whole clove
2-3 carrots, whole
Salt & pepper to taste

Heat the fat in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallot and sauté until softened and translucent. Add garlic, cook for a minute or two, then add mushrooms. Cook, stirring, for a few minutes, then add flour. Mix well and cook for a few minutes, scraping the bottom of the pan so the flour doesn’t scorch. Add wine a splash at a time, stirring to form a smooth, thick paste. Continue adding wine, stirring, then add the beef stock and tomato purée. Add bouquet garni, clove, and whole carrots. Bring to boil and simmer for 1 – 1½ hours until reduced to desired consistency. Remove and discard bouquet garni and carrots and season with salt and pepper to taste. May be done ahead of time and re-heated just before serving.

Fresh vegetables are scarce this time of year, but lightly cooked sauerkraut tastes crisp and fresh.

Light winter sauerkraut

1 lb sauerkraut, rinsed three times in fresh water to remove salt
1 small yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 large apple, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
2 T butter
1 clove
1 small chunk of a nutmeg
6 juniper berries
1 bay leaf
½ C white wine (riesling or gewürztraminer are perfect)
Salt and white pepper to taste

In a saucepan, heat the butter and sauté the onion until softened and translucent. Add apple and cook a bit. Add the rinsed and drained sauerkraut and toss until well mixed and cooked a bit. Smash the clove, nutmeg, and juniper berries and add to sauerkraut along with bay leaf, salt, and crushed white peppercorns.  Add white wine and cook, covered, for ½hour. Remove bay leaf and serve.

The moose flank steak was simplicity itself: rub with a little sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper, and goose fat which we happened to have on hand; let sit out at room temperature for a couple of hours before cooking; and cook over a hot barbeque until just rare (116° internal temperature at thickest part). Slice thinly and serve.

We began with a little salad made with fresh lettuces from the garden, dressed with a choice of local olive oil or local hazelnut oil. Our guests brought a bottle of Cliff Creek Cellars 2005 Syrah, made from grapes from Sams Valley Vineyard in the Rogue Valley. The wine was big, robust and full-fruited, a perfect accompaniment to the rich and deeply flavored moose.

Next morning before our guests departed, we fixed a brunch of scrambled duck eggs, yellow potatoes fried in goose fat, and Irina’s bread toasted and served with raspberry/pinot noir jam. A dozen duck eggs, and duck eggs are big. 20- year-old young men eat a lot – no leftover moose from dinner for a lunch burrito.

Life is hard on the farm. I’m going to miss that goose fat when it’s gone.

For New Year’s Eve, a small group of neighbors have a tradition of imposing on the hospitality of a couple who live enough nearby that driving is not an obstacle on this most celebratory of all the holidays. The mantle of “chef” has somehow settled on my shoulders for this event. This year, I was asked to prepare the “bean thing” that served for dinner last year.

I can’t remember what I had for dinner last night, much less last year. What in the world could that “bean thing” have been? I’m thinking, must have been some version of cassoulet. Let’s take inventory: in the freezer, ham hocks, side of pork, sausages from Michael, goose stock and duck stock. In the refrigerator, leftover goose from Christmas dinner, plus more meat picked from the bones boiled for stock. Goose fat and duck fat. In the cellar, onions and garlic, and a jar of canned tomatoes from the garden. All we need are a couple of pounds of cannellini beans and we’re good to go.

New Year’s Cassoulet

Serves 12 – 16

2 lb. canellini beans
8 T duck or goose fat
1 head of garlic, peeled and smashed
2 large onions, chopped
2 large carrots, chopped
2 ham hocks
2 lb. side of pork, cut into 1″cubes
1 bouquet garni (4 sprigs savory, 4 sprigs thyme, 4 sprigs parsley, 4 sprigs celery greens, 3 bay leaves)
1 quart jar puréed tomatoes
1 cup white wine
2½ quarts goose or duck broth (chicken stock will do in a pinch)
4 confit duck legs (we used goose, both left over from Christmas dinner and picked from the carcass after being boiled for stock)
4 lb. pork sausages (we used 4 garlic sausages and 4 jalapeño sausages from the Pepper Tree)
2 cups bread crumbs

Day 1

Put beans in a large bowl or other container, add water until water covers beans with 2 or three inches to spare, and soak overnight.

Day 2

1. Heat 4 T duck or goose fat in a large braising pan.  Add the pork cubes and brown on all sides; remove and set aside.  Brown the sausages and set aside, then brown the ham hocks and set aside.  Toss the onions and carrots into the pan and sauté until the onions are softened and translucent.  Splash in the wine, add the broth, then all of the browned meats.  Add the bouquet garni.  Bring to the boil, the simmer, covered, for 1½ hours until the meats are tender.

2. When done, pour everything in the braising pan through a colander, catching the stock in another pot.  Remove and discard the bouquet garni.  Pick out the meats with a pair of tongs and set aside to cool a bit.  Run the other solids caught in the colander (onions, carrots, garlic) through a blender until they form a paste; add paste to pot with broth and mix.  When cool enough, trim excess fat off pork chunks.  Trim meat of ham hocks and discard everything else (save the pork fat and all of the other bits from the ham hocks except the bone for the dog).  Cut sausages into enough pieces that you have at least one piece of each kind of sausage per person.

3. Drain beans.  Put beans in a large pot, cover with water, bring to boil, and simmer for ten minutes.  Drain and rinse.

4.  Return beans to pot.  Add stock, making sure beans are well covered.  Bring to boil and simmer for 1½- 2 hours until beans are just tender.

5.  When beans are done, spread ½ of beans on bottom of braising pan.  Spread meats (pork, ham, sausages, and duck or goose) on top of beans.  Cover with remainder of beans.  Cover and keep in refrigerator.

Day 3:  serving day

1. Heat oven to 300?. Drizzle cassoulet with duck or goose fat. Add enough additional broth to just cover the beans and bake, uncovered, for 3 hours.

2.  Remove cassoulet from oven.   Sprinkle with bread crumbs.  Drizzle with remaining fat.

We then took the cassoulet with us to our friends’ house to finish:

3.  Bake the cassoulet at 275° for 1 hour longer, until it is richly browned on the surface. Let rest for at least 20 minutes before serving.

Et voilà.

I think I prefer the cassoulet without the bread crumbs: instead, finish it off by baking for one hour at 325°. You still end up with a nice crusty surface.

This cassoulet was so tasty our New Year’s Eve hosts invited themselves for leftovers the next day. For me, the best is yet to come: after all the meaty bits have been picked over, the beans make for the best damn burrito that has ever passed a pair of lips.

Oh, turns out cassoulet wasn’t the requested “bean thing” after all. Consensus was, last year’s dinner was soupier, and served in a pot rather than a flat braising pan. By acclaim, a new tradition is born.

Can an event be called “celebratory” if everyone is home in bed by 10:00? We never even got around to opening the champagne.

Heartwarming news: the first lambs of the season were born today, January 5.

Twins, a boy (gray) and a girl (black), to a first-time momma, both strong and healthy. It’s a good day to be born, sunny and warm. Yesterday’s high was 63°, downright balmy for January. Today looks to be an encore.

Oil prices in 2011 averaged record highs, despite global economic woes.

Brent crude, the world oil benchmark, averaged $111 per barrel, breaking the previous record of an annual average high of $100 set in 2008. That spike contributed to a huge global recession. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) rose even more, averaging $95/barrel, an increase by 20% over its 2010 average price of $79. WTI traded at a hefty discount to world oil prices throughout the year – as much as $26/ barrel.

Global automotive market intelligence firm Polk forecasts worldwide new vehicle sales in 2012 will rise 6.7% over 2011 volumes  to 77.7 million vehicles. Polk expects China to make the largest contribution to global sales growth for new vehicles, with an anticipated 16% increase over 2011.

Polk expects that U.S. light vehicle sales will increase by 7.3% to 13.7 million vehicles. As this chart by Calculated Risk shows, sales are struggling to return to levels reached almost two decades ago, when the U.S. population was ~50 million less than today.

Polk is optimistically forecasting U.S. auto sales to return to “normal” levels of greater than 16 million vehicles per year by 2015 – and for global auto sales to approach 100 million by 2016.

Where is the gasoline to power all these new cars going to come from? Despite record high global oil prices, global oil production is refusing to budge. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) – which supply ~42% of global production – produced an average of 30.74 million barrels per day in December 2011.  OPEC production has been fluctuating within a ~5% band, as has global production.

Production of crude plus condensate has been basically flat since 2005, with new sources just barely managing to compensate for a 5% decline per year from existing production. Any increase in total liquids over that time has largely come from increases in NGPLs and other liquids.

Total liquids production worldwide increased 0.5% per year from 2005 to 2010 – but that includes low net energy fuels such as biofuels. However, the global supply of net oil exports available to importers other than China and India (what Jeffrey Brown calls Available Net Exports, or ANE) fell at a rate of 2.8% per year from 2005 to 2010. Brown expects oil available for import by most of the world to fall by 5% – 8% each year for the rest of the decade.

In Saudi Arabia (now the world’s second largest oil producer after Russia), production has been declining.  Only a dozen or so of the 54 oil producing nations in the world are still increasing their oil production.

If global economic growth, feeble though it may be, manages to continue in 2012, we can expect even higher oil prices. Even if people are willing and able to pay higher prices, there are limits to global supplies of oil that can be refined into motor fuels. What good will all these new cars be, if there is not enough fuel to power them?

It’s a good bet that rosy forecasts for U.S. and global auto sales will prove to be powered by nothing more than fantasy.