The Monday Muse #8
Boiling down the alcohol in ragu, a dish I can't taste anyway since I have COVID
Welcome to the Monday Muse, a short round up of stuff that I found interesting in the last week. If you have comments or ideas you want to share, feel free to drop me a message any time!
1/ What I’ve Been Up To
Whenever the borders opened during the first wave of the Big Pan-D, my wife and I immediately booked tickets out of the country. We were living in Europe at the time, and I remember traveling to Portugal, Sicily, France, Germany, the Czech Republic and probably a couple of other places. Somehow, we managed to dodge getting the virus. In fact, I don’t remember getting sick at all in over two years. We were lucky on many accounts.
After a short trip up north last week to the annual Hokkaido snow festival, we both finally got COVID. The symptoms came on quickly the day after we hiked a few hours through the snow. Perhaps our tired state and lowered immune systems from the trek made us more susceptible to getting the virus. I suspect that we picked it up from the large breakfast buffet at the hotel…but alas, we will never know.
The symptoms came on strong, including shaking and trembling at night. On average, I changed my drenched shirt three times at night. The loss of taste and smell made the whole situation more of a buzzkill than I would have imagined. Usually when you’re sick, you can bask in the flavor of a savory chicken noodle soup and get some comfort from eating. I can only identify the very basic tastes like sweet and salty. Apart from texture, the only difference I can tell between an orange, apple, and banana are their levels of sweetness. This makes eating a lot less enjoyable.
I thought I’d share my Oura ring data that I recorded from the first three days after noticing symptoms:
2/ What I Found Interesting
How long does it take to boil down alcohol in Ragu?
The first episode of the Netflix cooking show Salt, Fat, Acid Heat inspired me to make some Ragu. The recipe called for wine. I don’t drink but it’s honestly not a huge deal to have a little alcohol in my food. But still, I wondered how long it actually takes for alcohol to fully evaporate.
I never bothered or cared to look this up before and always assumed that most of the alcohol evaporated very quickly, within 10 or 15 minutes. I learned that this is definitely wrong. The boiling point of alcohol depends on the specific type of alcohol and boiling point of ethanol which you find in beer/wine is 78.3°C (173°F).
Even when boiling, it can take a significant amount of time for all the alcohol to evaporate, especially in dishes with a large volume of liquid like my big pot of Ragu. They say about 30 minutes of boiling can reduce the alcohol content of wine by about 50%. Some studies have shown that even after two or 3 hours of cooking, 5-10% of the alcohol can remain.
For a cup of wine with an alcohol content of 14% that gets boiled down to 90 or 95%, that’s like 0.7% or 1% alcohol remaining diluted in a big bowl of Ragu. That’s not that bad, I guess, as long as you’re cooking it for a while!
3/ What I’m Reading
For people who’ve experienced trauma, mindfulness meditation can exacerbate symptoms of traumatic stress. Considering that most of us will experience a traumatic event in our lives, and a percentage of us will get post-traumatic stress, it’s useful to know what to watch out for. This might be surprising for some people who see meditation as the answer to all of their solutions. In a way, it can be, but the type of meditation you choose, timing and being aware of triggers can save you from a lot of unnecessary suffering. This is a great read for anyone who is interested, and furthermore you can check out Dr. Britton’s work on this topic at her site here.
4/ What I’m Watching
Crypto Popcorn Season and Bitcoin Signs of Life
"Crypto Popcorn Season" is a term used to describe a period of time in the cryptocurrency market where prices are rapidly rising, similar to the pop and excitement of popcorn kernels popping in a hot pan. Popcorn Season is often characterized by increased media coverage of cryptocurrencies, high levels of investor enthusiasm, and rapid price movements in both positive and negative directions.
Bitcoin has passed the “golden cross” on it’s price chart (five days after it appeared on the S&P 500, which seems to drive bitcoins price), which has traditionally been a bullish sign of a return to a healthy market. And after years of little activity, it looks like some cryptocurrencies are starting to “pop” out of their multi-year accumulation range. Examples include CRV, GRT, and ATOM, just to name a few. In other words: Signs of life!
If you’re interested to dive deeper into the price of Bitcoin and crypto, I’d recommend checking out Chris Dunn’s videos below. He’s one of the few traders and educators in crypto that is level-headed and isn’t shilling a specific coin or project, but rather teaches you the skills to make the judgement for yourself.
5/ Quotes I’m Pondering
"If you can sit quietly after difficult news; if financial downturns you remain perfectly calm; if you can see your neighbors travel to fantastic places without a twinge of jealousy; if you can happily eat whatever is put on your plate; you can fall asleep after a day of running around without a drink or a pill; if you can always find contentment just where you are: you are probably a dog."
— "A Lamp in the Darkness: Illuminating the Path Through Difficult Times” by Jack Kornfield and Jon Kabat-Zinn