On Saturday, April 4 the Kansas City Food Circle presents its eleventh annual exhibition of local farmers between 9:15 am to 2:00 pm at the Roger T. Sermon Community Center. If you are interested in eating locally it can be difficult locating producers. I've always felt that part of being a good localvore is building a trust relationship between yourself and individual farmers or growers. This is a great opportunity to begin these relationships.

I'm in tears.

[credit to c0bra for the find]

This is a robust stout with big toasty overtones softened by the addition of maple syrup during the boil and during bottling. If you were to find yourself outside shirtless during a blizzard shouting and waving a sword at your Scandinavian gods this is the beer you should be drinking.

• #1 Simpsons Medium Crystal
• #1.5 Simpsons Chocolate
• #0.5 Roasted barley
• #1 Simpsons Black Malt
• #1 Franco-Belges Kiln Coffee
• #1 Weyermann CaraAroma

Steep grain
@170° for 60 Minutes

• #3.15 NB Amber malt syrup
• #6 NB Amber malt syrup
• 14 oz. Grade B Maple syrup at 70 minutes
• 2 oz. Challenger hop pellets (6.3%) at 70 minutes
• 1 oz. Haullertauer Mittelfruh pellets (4.4%) at 50 minutes
• 1 oz. Haullertauer Mittelfruh pellets (4.4%) at 40 minutes
• 1 oz. Haullertauer Mittelfruh pellets (4.4%) at 30 minutes
• 1 oz. Cascades hop pellets (7.8%) at 5 minutes
• 8 oz. Grade B Maple syrup at 5 minutes
• Wyeast Ringwood Ale yeast, in 2L wort starter

Original Gravity: 1.103

The much awaited demolition of Bannister Mall began a few weeks ago. I only know this because I've been driving by the expanse of flaking asphalt and empty buildings for many years. I knew that the Three Trails project was moving forward with tax credits and funding and that soon there might be a soccer stadium on this gentle rise near the 'iron triangle' of intersecting interstate highways.

The twinge of nostalgia I feel is so slight as to go unnoticed. A nostalgia not of the countless hours I spent playing video games in the arcade or the whole weekends I spent in the movie theater watching Star Wars. No, it's a yearning for a time before even that. It's just a small child's memory of a time when the hill was thick with oak trees, before it had a fresh coat of asphalt with designated handicapped parking spaces.

Over the next 15 years the asphalt spread -- supplemented by accompanying buildings of one commercial pursuit or other -- to almost twice its original area. The area was a commercial hot spot. I hated it, the crowds, the traffic, the endless asphalt vistas. During the holidays it was anathema to me. Then it slowly started to fall apart.

The mobile middle class suburbanites continued their great, slow migration to the periphery of the metro. They took their cash, cars and children with them. [sub]Urban decay moved in with a vengeance and it didn't take long to wipe out all that progress. Still it was a lingering death and painful to watch -- everyone knew who would win the struggle.

Enter Three Trails Redevelopment LLC (a partnership that includes Lane 4 and OnGoal LLC) -- along with $260 million in TIF and $30 million in state tax credits. They have a plan. Honestly, I was a little excited to hear of redevelopment including a soccer stadium coming to the site. A plan is good, right?

A few days ago was the first time I put a critical eye to the plan and I must say it is really more of the same only bigger. Sure, the parking spaces are interspersed with trees and the blue splotches that I assume represent tiny lakes are a nice touch but what we've added here are acres of asphalt. No, the era isn't ending we've only made it over -- bigger and better this time.

The thoughts of most gardeners turn to sprouting seeds and bright red tomatoes in the middle of January -- many seed catalogs are marked up and page corners are folded before the month is over. By this time of the year there is much pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth to get outside and play in the dirt.

Usually, little thought is given to harvest day until one has 2 bushels of ripe tomatoes on the kitchen table getting more ripe by the moment. You have been victorious in your battle against cutworms, dry spells, hornworms, and cool spring evenings. You have produced mountains of vegetables but it isn't much of a win if you have to toss most of it in the compost bin.

The University of Missouri Extension service is coming to your rescue this year. Several of the local county extension offices are presenting a three part series of workshops on food preservation. Each session is independent of the others and offers hands on experience. See the following for more information on courses in specific counties:

Jackson County:
Topics to be featured are: June 16 – water bath canning; June 30 – pressure canning vegetables; June 14 – freezing and dehydrating; July 28 – pickling. Sessions will be held at St. Paul United Methodist Church, 3601 S. Sterling Avenue, Independence, MO., from 6 – 8 p.m. Pre-registration is required and the cost is $10 per workshop or $30 for the whole series. To register, call University Extension, Jackson County office at 816-482-5850.

Clay and Platte County:
Topics to be featured are: April 30 – water bath canning of fruits and tomatoes; May 14 – pressure canning vegetables; May 28 – freezing and dehydrating produce; June 11 – pickling and jams. Sessions will be held at North Cross United Methodist Church, 1351 NE Vivion Road, KC, MO., from 6 – 8 p.m. Pre-registration is required and the cost is $10 per workshop or $30 for the whole series. To register, call University Extension, Clay County offices at 816-407-3490.

Cass County:
Topics to be featured are: March 28 – pressure and water bath canning; June 1 – pressure and water bath canning; June 4 – dehydration. Session locations vary. 3/28 session will be held at Archie Community Center-Hwy A, Archie, MO, from 9-11:30 am, 6/1 and 6/4 TBA. Pre-registration is required and the cost is $10 per canning workshop or $7 per dehydration workshop. To register, call University Extension, Cass County office at 816-380-8460.

This is the fifth iteration of a long running experiment to perfect a Double IPA. Each has been very good -- excepting iteration 4 which got an extra 3 pounds of malt syrup because Paul got me drunk enough that I couldn't remember what I was doing, still it wasn't bad.

• #1 Breiss Caramel malt 10° L
• #1 German Vienna malt

Strike water @175°F for 60 minutes

• #3.15 Northern Brewer Pilsen malt syrup
• #6 Northern Brewer Pilsen malt syrup
• 1 oz. Centennial hops (8%AA) at 60 minutes
• 1 oz. Centennial hops (8%AA) at 30 minutes
• 1 oz. Centennial hops (8%AA) at 20 minutes
• 1 tsp. irish moss at 15 minutes
• 1 oz. Centennial hops (8%AA) at 5 minutes
• 1 oz. Centennial hops (8%AA) in primary
• Wyeast 1332 Northwest Ale yeast, in 2L wort starter

Original Gravity: 1.078

This looks to be a good start, the gravity is a bit higher than all of the other versions. In about 5 weeks we'll see where this one ends up.

While I'm not sure who the intended audience of the Brewers Association 2009 Beer Style Guidelines is but it isn't the book for competition brewers and judges. While this may be good learning resource for beginning craftbrewers it probably sees little use by the more experienced. For pedantic beer style arguments, experienced craftbrewers would most likely recognize the BJCP Style Guidelines as the authority.

However, this update includes two new styles: American-Belgo Styles Dark Ales and Session Beer. I've a pretty good idea where the American-Belgo Dark Ale style fits in. But I was curious about what the BJCP Style guide seems to consider a quality of an existing beer style -- "Despite being very full of flavor, is light bodied enough to be consumed as a session beer in its home brewpubs in Düsseldorf." or "A flavorful, yet refreshing, session beer." -- had been given its own style by the Brewers Association.

From the 2009 Brewers Association style guide:

Any style of beer can be made lower in strength than described in the classic style guidelines. The goal should be to reach a balance between the style's character and the lower alcohol content. Ease of drinkability is a character in the overall balance of these beers. Beers in this category must not exceed 4.1% alcohol by weight (5.1% alcohol by volume).

It seems it is just lower alcohol version of any other style of beer. I think it is a poor choice for a beer style, guys.

Without much fanfare Apple upgraded a bunch of its products and the Mac mini has had its back end revamped (along with the processor, graphics and power consumption). You know how much I like back ends, I can not lie.

In addition to the 5 USB 2.0 ports the mini has a Mini DisplayPort along with the standard Mini DVI, firewire 800 and gigabit ethernet ports. I'm not really sure what good the DisplayPort is right now but good job Apple on embracing recently adopted standards.

Given looming peak oil the real hit may be the mini's reduced power consumption. Apple reports that the mini "uses 45 percent less power than the previous model — less than 13W while it’s idle." Making it the "most energy-efficient desktop computer in the world." Swap out one of those 75W incandescent light bulbs for a 60W and you could idle the new mini for free.

The Cowtown Computer Congress (CCCKC) is celebrating the opening of their newly installed underground laboratory (no I'm not kidding) at 3101 Mercier with a week of hacker, maker: and instructable: like events beginning Monday, March 2, 2009.

The idea to create a Kansas City 'hacker space' has been floating in the hacker community and I had heard of it on a couple of occasions via the KC perl monger list and from one of the principle members about six months ago. Finally, the CCCKC, which

"was formed in 2008 to create a shared space for local technology enthusiasts to meet, collaborate on group projects, share tools and to support Kansas City’s technology community."

has seen the beginning of the fulfillment of its vision. It is certainly a grand vision and one I support. I congratulate the CCCKC on this important first step.

For this installment of the pizza showdown we chose Wheat State Pizza. I've heard many excellent things about Wheat State and eagerly anticipated this visit. I had heard there was a park next to their 8039 Santa Fe location and it was a beautiful day so I headed out early to enjoy a bit of the weather.

After enjoying the day for about 20 minutes -- not mean's fault this time -- the 5 of us gathered inside the tiny location and settled on 3, 12" pies: The Farmer (Pepperoni, Pork Sausage, Canadian Bacon, Beef, Red Onions, Green Peppers, Black Olives, Fresh Mushrooms, and Extra Cheese)on wheat, Mediterranean (Pesto Sauce, Spinach, Green Olives, Sun Dried Tomatoes, Mozzarella, and Feta Cheese) wheat and The Luau (Canadian Bacon, Pineapple, Spinach, and Extra Cheese) on white.