#31 - Take a Cooking Class

A few years ago, Denise gave me an IOU for a cooking for my birthday.  Last night I finally collected.

Earlier this week I registered online for a class at the Sur La Table in Carlsbad.  I elected to turn it into a sort of date night and registered Denise as well. 

The topic of last nights course was "Quick Dinners from the Italian Pantry."  The menu called for Quick Parmesan Polenta with Thyme-Scented Mushrooms - Orechiette with Chicken, Roasted Red Peppers, and Pine Nut Pesto - Peach, Prosciutto and Gorgonzola Pizza with Aged Balsamic - Roasted Green Onion and Farro Salad with Fresh Mozzarella. 

I have to say that if I learned nothing else from the class I at least learned that Italian pantries are apparently better stocked than mine.  I don't generally have things like prosciutto, fresh mozzarella and aged balsamic laying around.  I guess I will have to work on that.

The class consisted of about 13 people divided into teams of four or so.  Each team prepared all four dishes, with different team members handling different parts of the prep, chopping, grating, whisking, sauteing, and whatever.  Here we have an action shot of Denise quartering cherry tomatoes for the Farro salad.  Look at those knife skills!  She's not even bleeding.

The instructor/chef and her assistants handled some of the prep to keep things within something like the 2-hour scheduled class time.  For example, the farro was pre-cooked before the class and the pizza dough, obviously, was prepared quite a while ahead so as to have time to rise.

The menu turned out to be very tasty.



Roasted Green Onion and Farro Salad with Fresh Mozzarella



A not at all good photo of the Orechiette with Chicken, Roasted Red Peppers, and Pine Nut Pesto

Another lousy picture of the polenta and mushrooms.

Peach, Prosciutto and Gorgonzola Pizza with Aged Balsamic

Sorry, the pictures were from my phone and the quality kind of sucks...also, in most cases I forgot to take pictures before I started eating.

Although I didn't learn much of anything new in the way of technique, I did come away with some new recipes, some ingredients I haven't played with previously and an opportunity to buy a bunch of kitchen gadgets that I probably don't need.  I especially like my new Pig Molcajete.

You get the class, a four-course meal and a 10% off coupon for all your Sur La Table shopping for the fairly reasonable price of $69/head.  Dinner out would have cost at least that much - but then dinner out would also have included alcohol.  I must sneak some in for my next class - perhaps their Summer Paella Workshop.

#29 - Visit a Civil War Battlefield

I suppose I should have been more specific, as I could have ended up in Libya or Syria or Sudan or God's knows where, but I did in fact mean to visit a United States Civil War battlefield.  And as a result of my most recent vacation I can check this one off.

Attended my nephew's wedding in Pittsburgh, PA, the last weekend in May.  Pittsburgh did not sound the least bit appealing (my only frame of reference being steel mills and Ben Rothlisberger fans) but it turned out to be quite a nice town and well worth a visit even if you're not attending a wedding.  We were lodged in a neighborhood near the University of Pittsburgh (Go Panthers!)  with an abundance of nice little diners and sandwich shops and bars and what not.  Consider (below) the steak sandwich from Primanti Brothers, their #2 best seller.  Foolishly I asked what their #1 best seller was; "Beer."

We even had time for a Reds-Pirates game at PNC Park on Memorial Day.  A violinist played the National Anthem - awesome!  ("Awesome...like a hot dog?"  "Like a hundred billion hot dogs sir!")  Check out the violideo on Facebook.

Leaving Pittsburgh on Tuesday (my 30th wedding anniversary - my wife's too, coincidentally) we headed east toward the quiet southern Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg.  Stopped, inadvertently, along the way at the Flight 93 Memorial site.  Inadvertently because we did not realize we were anywhere near the site.  Just happened to pull off the turnpike for a Denise break and saw a sign directing us to the memorial.  It is quite beautiful and moving.

The remainder of the drive to Gettysburg was uneventful except for the MASSIVE THUNDERSTORM that forced us off the road and into a convenient hilltop bar.  Waited through several Yuenglings for the storm to subside and finally arrived in Gettysburg in the early evening.

Tuesday night we stayed at the Quality Inn at General Lee's Headquarters on Seminary Ridge.  As the name states, Robert E. Lee made his headquarters in a couple of the buildings incorporated into this hotel site.  There's a small museum on site - free to lodgers - and probably more importantly, the Appalachian Brewing Company brew pub is directly next door, serving a perfectly acceptable IPA.

Our balcony on Seminary Ridge

Wednesday after breakfast and a tour of the hotel museum, we spent the entire remainder of the day touring Gettysburg National Military Park.   The visitor's center is beautiful, the museum very nice and the cyclorama, oh, interesting in a Disney-esque sort of way, that is until you realize that it was painted by one guy in less than a year in 1883 - it's 27 feet high by 359 feet around!

At the visitor's center we purchased "The Gettsyburg Story: Battlefield Auto Tour," a 3-CD set guiding you through some 16 different stops around the 10 square mile battlefield.  It is very good and well narrated - parts could bring you to tears, for example "The Wheat Field" (you can listen to the excerpt at the web site.)   Of course, the narration is much more powerful when you are sitting in the actual field.

We spent about 6 hours driving the 3-hour tour - BTW, I can't use the phrase 3-hour tour without hearing the Gilligan's Island theme song rattling around in the open recesses of my cranium - because I felt compelled to get out of the car and run around at every scheduled stop and points in between.

I could easily have spent a week or a month.  It is beautiful and poignant and inspiring.  I won't even try to recount any details of the visit, there are way too many to begin to describe.  The best advice I can give is to visit. 

A small sampling of photos follows...you can view the lot here.

Little Round Top

Confederate Cannon

Near the Confederate "High Water Mark"

A fine long day, eventually we had to move on towards D.C., but not before dinner at the Pub and Restaurant in downtown Gettysburg.

As a postscript to our visit, after arriving in our Arlington, VA, apartment, the boys and I spent the remaining nights of the trip streaming Ken Burn's "The Civil War" through Netflix.  I've always loved that, but the experience of the battlefield visit puts the film in a whole new perspective.

#3 - Visit the Smithsonian

Yes, I have now visited the Smithsonian.  Or a couple Smithsonians actually, there are after all a whole herd of Smithsonian museums in Washington D.C. and its environs.

My first visit was to the National Air and Space Museum, Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport, new home of the Space Shuttle Discovery. 

Also home of the Enola Gay, Gossamer Albatross, Concord, GlobalFlyer, Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules and even a couple Goodyear blimp gondolas.  Very cool!  Pictures to be viewed here.

Next day we spent a bit of time at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History on the National Mall.  Too much to see and too many groups of school children, but we managed to see bits of dinosaur fossils, ancient seas, human history, the Hope Diamond, gems and minerals and the Chilean miner escape pod.  We even had a beer in the museum's cafe.

#8 - Weigh what is says on my driver's license

I may have bent the truth a little bit the last time I had to update my driver's license.  Didn't really lie actually, just didn't update the part about my weight.  The fields for my height (6'-2") hadn't changed nor sex (rarely), so I figured I'd just leave the weight where it was, even though that particular number was well back in the rear view mirror.

Anyway, I've since been a little worried whenever in a traffic stop (which is often) that I may be arrested for trying to impersonate a thinner person.

Short of contracting some debilitating disease or having my broken jaw wired shut, I figured I was never likely to get back to my ideal weight, much less my driver's license weight.  But when the time came to draft my hundred and one things, I decided I might as well throw this one out there.

Once it was on the list I didn't give it much thought again until early this year, with the arrival of the Christmas family photos.  "Good God! Who is the FAT F__K in those pictures?!?!?"  Well, that was me.

So, I started on a diet.  And exercise.  And joined in a little weight loss competition at work.  And I actually started to lose weight.

Today was the final weigh-in at work and actually measured in at 2.2 lbs under my DLW.  So, I'm going to count this one really quick before I put all the weight back on again.

Actually, I have about another 12 or 13 pounds to get to my real target weight, so I'm going to keep going for a while.

Wii is an Idiot
One little side note: the only "scale" we have in the house is our Wii Fit.  (Actually, that's not true...I have a little electronic kitchen scale, but I'd have to cut myself up into little 2lb increments to weigh myself on that.)  I have lately been weighing in on the scale at work and haven't checked in on the Wii for months.  So, just for kicks I got on the Wii the other evening to see how it compared with the readings at the office.

So, I get on and the first thing out of the Wii's...mouth?...as it magically calculates my BMI is "That's Obese!"  No "Hey, haven't seen you in a while" or "Wow, you've lost 30 lbs since last you stepped on me."  No, just calls me obese.  (Actually, I Googled my height and weight and found a site that says I'm just Overweight, so I'm sticking with that.)

So Wii goes on to suggest that a good target weight for me would be 171.5 lbs.  ONE SEVENTY ONE FIVE!!!!  For the record, I haven't weighed 171.5 since I was a sophomore in high school.  When I was in my best shape ever, running 10Ks and doing peak climbs in the Sierras all summer, I weighed about 208.  And also for the record, 171.5 is another SIXTY-SEVEN POINT THREE POUNDS less than what I weighed in this morning.   You do the math.  I'm pretty sure I've eaten meals that weigh more than 171.5.

Anyway, tonight I am going to celebrate with a little Woodford Reserve  90 proof.  110 calories per shot. 

#35 - Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity

I've been meaning to do this for a long, long time and the opportunity finally presented itself this last Saturday.  The timing was bad, coinciding with a brief heat wave and a ramp up in workload at the office,  but I went ahead anyway, not knowing when the next opportunity might present itself.

That's me way down on the end >>>

I should probably back up a bit.  For some time I've been of the opinion that I should probably be more engaged in some mode of volunteerism.  While I think adopting Leo qualifies me for at least a few brownie points, it doesn't probably meet the criteria for community service.

My last major volunteer activity was the Chaparral High School Grad Night, setting up the gymnasium and constructing sets for the all-night post-graduation party.  While it was only a little over a week of construction and manual labor per year, it was a LOT of labor, so I figured it met at least my minimum moral obligation. 

Grad Night was a good fit for me as a volunteer; lots of hands on activities, physical labor, not too terribly intellectually taxing, requiring minimal social skills, it provided an opportunity to employ my abundant (but somehow always inadequate) array of power tools and, in the process, bleed on lots of things.  Consistent with the notion that no good deed goes unpunished, one year the Grad Night project even landed me in the hospital.

Sadly, my last foray into the Grad Night space was the year of Jacob's crash, so he did not even attend the Grad Night of his graduation.  (That's coming up on three years ago already, BTW.)  That, as it turned out, was also the last year for the Chaparral Grad Night as we knew it.  It turned out to be too expensive and way too much work for the few volunteers who really ran things, so now they've opted for Disney trips or God only knows what.

So, on to new avenues of community involvement.  Framing houses for Habitat seemed like another good fit.  Let's face it, I'm not the type to counsel trouble youths: "You know Johnny, I've always found that there's no problem too big for alcohol."

My introductory framing session was this last Saturday morning.  Early morning.  6:30AM in Jurupa Valley.  Which meant an O'dark-thirty wake up call and hour drive, which is not a fun way to start the weekend.  The Habitat organizers check you in, collect your waiver of liability, serve up some donated Starbucks coffee, give a brief prayer (that volunteers not bash each other with flailing hammers), issue tools and then offer some brief training.  There are professional framers volunteering their time to coordinate things and keep the volunteers from doing any permanent damage.  It looked a lot like they were herding cats.

While probably necessary given the number of novices swinging hammers, the mandatory hardhats and safety glasses were a pain in the butt.  I'd be bending over driving nails, blinded by sweaty googles, swinging the hammer with right hand and with the left catching the hardhat that was forever flying off my head.

I cannot remember when I have ever driven so many nails, but I have a pair of nice blisters on my hammer hand proving that I participated (and that I am a pussy.)

All things considered, it was hot, sweaty and actually quite enjoyable.  It was pretty amazing actually; big empty concrete slab and piles of lumber at 7:30 and by 10:30 all the walls, exterior and interior, were nailed up and raised.  The site is not too far from my office, so I'll have to drive by once in a while to see how quickly the rest goes up.

Rather than bore you with more of my babbling on about the project, you can check out more info and pictures at http://www.habitatriverside.org/42112-walls-raised-at-crestmore/1368.

The only really weird part was doing all that construction without a single beer.  That is clearly not like me.

Updates on some overdue postings

Another of the several list items that I've finished, but have been too lazy to update in the blog.  Some of these were only marginally completed, but I'm going to count them anyway.

45. Build a media serverWhile probably not technically a media server, I'm counting this.  My old tower PC was about full to the gills with cheesy home video and music files.  I bought a RAID controller card and a few hard drives and now I have a few spare terrabytes to start filling up with even more cheese.

68. Mow the grass with a push mower (don't tell any co-workers) We snagged a push mower from Jackie and Mike's garage sail when they moved to their current (grass free) home.  It has come in handy on a number of occasions, in light of the fact that my gas mower has become somewhat tempermental.  I think the auto-choke is messed up; works fine in warm weather, not so much in cold.

The push mower is fine for our meager front lawn, as long as we keep on top of it.  Allow the grass to get out of control through a couple weeks of neglect and it becomes quite a chore.

75. Dress up and go out
Nothing regular, but I have actually managed a couple occasions that warranted a suit, Christmas parties, weddings, the old play.  Damn, I'm good looking.

79. Listen to podcasts/audiobooks on the commuteI've been doing this, but not as much as I might have originally liked.  Turns out I have a sort of commuting ADD; I lose track of what's transpiring in the book while I'm busy swearing at all the stupid motorists doing the kind of jack-assed maneuvers that I routinely do on my own.  I am constantly realizing that I've missed some key point and having to re-wind (not easily accomplished with my iPod while driving.) 

I'm currently listening to "The Guns of August" both on the commute and at bed time.  At bed time it is an excellent sleeping aid; I must have listened to the first five chapters 50 times, forever falling asleep and then rewinding.  I suppose I shouldn't use a sleeping aid while driving, but oh well.

85. Visit Alpine BrewingOne afternoon after spending the day at work at our El Cajon plant, I went east on a sojourn to the town of Alpine and the brewery therein.  Damn fine beer, (Pure Hoppiness) even when drinking alone.  Bought a growler and brought some home.  I was not going to count this yet, because for some reason it didn't feel like it counted with no one along to witness.  But then again, who knows when I might get back there again.

86. Build music boxes with the movements I've had foreverGot a few done this year at Christmas, one for Tee and one for Denise.  Have another 4 or 5 movements left, but this was a good start.

91. Organize the garage so we can get a car in it and still use it as a workshopWhile not really well organized, we can at least keep Denise's Prius in the garage and I can, for the most part, get at my tools.  Certainly will benefit from more organizing, but the car is in, so count it.

93. Get a new bed
Another one that is not entirely finished, but it does constitute a new bed, so I think it qualifies.  I built a box-bed frame and Denise purchased a "green" mattress to top it off.  We're sleeping on it, so it must be a bed.  I still need to finish the drawers that are supposed to fit in the frame.  They've been cut out and ready to assemble for months, but Denise keeps finding other projects for me.

98. Convert Nick's old room into my office/exercise/reading/media room
I have my computer, exercise bike, Wii, cable box, USB turntable, Power Block weight bench and probalby a few other items all arranged in Nick's old room, organized enough that I can actually use them.  Still a bit of a mess, but hey, it's a man's room.

#61 - Dinner at Cold Spring Tavern

Took me a while, but when I finally finished this one I finished it good.

For four straight weekends last month I worked in Goleta, helping Denise and her sibling's renovate their rental property.

Their renters of the last nine years or so recently departed, so there was about nine years worth of deferred maintenance to be done before putting it back on the market.  Actually, more like 45 years in some cases, because there's stuff that's never been upgraded in the lifetime of the house; single-pane aluminum sliders, dilapidated patio cover, painting galore.

As if I don't have enough projects to do at my own house.  But these projects took precedence, so off to Goleta we've gone.

Anyways, I decided that as long as I was shackled into forced labor I might as well have a little fun.  So, after working our second straight Saturday we took the entire crew (Pam, Paul, Doug and Sue) to Cold Spring Tavern for dinner.  We were joined by my sister, Linda.  Leo stayed back at the Goleta house with Bear.

Unfortunately, my phone's camera was not cooperating much so I have little in the was of photographic evidence.  I do have this fabulous photograph of Doug and Paul, in front of one of the aging trophies.  I will say this - taxidermy is not forever.  So of these various critter heads are in pretty sad shape.

The food on the other hand is delicious.




I love the Cold Spring Chili, so I had it for an appetizer.  Here's a photo.  Well it's a photo of what was left.

For my entree, the bunny.   Actually, Sauteed Medallions of Rabbit in a Marsala sauce of some type.  Fabulous!

 Not one for dessert, I had some Patrón XO Cafe instead (they were out of Gran Marnier.)  Not too bad at all.

Having completed item #61, I went on, in the spirit of beating a dead horse, and had dinner at Cold Spring again two weekends later.  Linda had mentioned that she had some old tools she was getting rid of and was I interested.  Never passing up an opportunity for more tools, I went with Denise up to the top of the pass, met Linda for dinner (the baby back ribs this time, yummy) and finished up the evening by raiding Linda's garage.  I don't actually need anymore tools, but I figure the boys can certainly use them.

Oh, besides the visits to Cold Spring, there was one other benefit of working on the Goleta house; it gave me the chance to use one of my other fabulous Christmas gifts...

"As seen on TV" the magic wrist band magnetic screw holder thingy that Denise saw fit to buy me.  I will say it provided an excellent workout; climbing up and down the ladder to pick up the bolts and nuts that kept falling off the magnets.  Oh well, I suppose I was exceeding the weight rating.  What it did best was too make my wrist all sweaty. 






#62 - Host a Feast of the Seven (or more) International Fish Dishes

It's been two months since completing this item and I don't know why it's taken so long to post.  I quite enjoyed completing it.  It turned out to be a...

 "Feast of the Indeterminate Number of Multinational Fishes." 

I tried, but I simply couldn't weed the list down to seven dishes, but I was proud to have gotten down from the original 25 or so to a nice round eleven.  Well, not so round, but at least an odd number which I understand to be required for good luck.  As to the multinational part, I never intended to try to do all Italian dishes, because I'm sure I couldn't pull that off.  So, there was some Mexican, Italian, French, etc. to try to make it interesting

The Menu

Appetizers

Oysters on the Half Shell

 Nicholas provided the oysters from a local San Diego farmer's market.  Raised locally, at Carlsbad Aquafarm, they were small and delicious little morsels, even if inexpertly shucked by yours truly.  They taste like the sea and I mean that in the best of ways.  Must have more.

 

 

Grilled Shrimp on Rosemary Skewers

 Giant shrimp from the local market, with skewers of fresh rosemary from our own front yard.  These are simple, tasty and easy to prep ahead of time, keeping some of the craziness of course coordination to a minimum.

 

 

Potato Blinis with Sour Cream, Dill and Black Caviar

  I didn't follow any particular recipe, just threw things together including some left over mashed potatoes.  The were fun to make and turned out very pretty, if not particularly tasty.

 

 

 Calamari Friti with Fried Zucchini

One of the several courses where I injected some vegan choices into the menu.  The original plan did not call for zucchini, but I didn't want Tee to starve while we all gorged ourselves on seafood.  The calamari recipe is from Giada De Laurentis on Food Network and they are great.

 

 

Catfish Ceviche with Avocado & Tortilla Chips

I love this one!  Catfish is so easy to get ahold of and we have gallons of lime juice from our tree.  Another dish easily made ahead.

Soup

Shrimp and Crab, Black Bean and Corn Chowder Salad

My original plan was for bouillabaisse, but that's not easily veganized.  I switched to this chowder recipe, which was vegan right up until the shrimp and crab were added.  Served a bowl for Tee, then added the seafood and served everyone else.  This is very good, but could easily be a meal in itself.  A little much when combining with ten other dishes.

Salad

Variation on Nicoise with Smoked Trout

This was a nice idea with poor execution.  I had some butterflied trout fillets from the local market, which I smoked in my electric smoker.  The trout went on to what would otherwise have been a Nicoise salad.  Unfortunately, I was so intent on not overcooking my potatoes that they were under cooked.  A little Irish as some would say, although I've never understood that expression.

 

 

Course 1

Local Mussels in Thai Green Curry Sauce with a side of Kimchi

The mussels also came from Nicholas by way of San Diego and Carlsbad Aquafarm.  The kimchi was homemade and didn't necessarly belong along side Thai cuisine, but I like it and it's vegan.  But then, I don't even know if Tee like kimchi.

 

 

Course 2

Salmon Croquettes

This was another dish that I figured would be relatively easy to prepare mostly ahead of serving.  The croquettes were all assembled earlier before the guests arrived and just had to be fried up for serving.  I normally love this recipe (or not recipe actually, since I don't entirely follow one), but this time I was less than impressed with myself.  Maybe I was just full.  If no one else enjoyed them, at least Leo did; he ended up with the left over salmon skin.

 

-

 

This was as far as the meal made it before most in attendance threw in the towel.  It must have been all those damn vegan sides that filled everyone up.

 

-

 

Course 3

Tilapia Fish Tacos

As it turned out, Jacob and his friend Giovana came in later and requested the fish tacos, so while they weren't a part of the actual feast they sort of made it in as dessert this made me very happy, because they were really good in my humble opinion, particularly the chipotle crema sauce on top.

 

 

Course 4

Spaghetti with Tuna

Alas, this course did not make the cut, even for dessert.  I had strategically saved this one for last, because all of the ingredients could keep.  The recipe uses canned tuna, in this case locally packed from American Tuna.  It is delcious and was worth the wait until we made it many days later once fully recovered from fish overdose.  The recipe I found in Bon Apetite and could not be simpler.

Many Overdue

I continue to be terribly remiss in my duties updating this blog.  I've completed several of the items and have failed through laziness or general boredom or whatever to post a single update in Blog knows how long.

I've also made a number of changes to the list, removed some items that seemed boring, incredibly unlikely or maybe just silly.  In their place I've added a number of things that are significantly more likely and, more importantly, potentially fun.

Anyway, stayed tuned.  I should have some updates shortly.

#25 - Grow Rhubarb

Close this one out.  I have been really remiss in reporting on the progress of my rhubarb and should have posted long ago.

Of the 25 seeds planted back in January, about 15 survived to plant in the yard.  I added two bare-root plants and another potted rhubarb for about 18 total plants.

A couple of the plants started from seed proved to be the best producers.  For no rhyme or reason, some plants sprouted enormous shoots up to 3 feet tall. 

Others remaining delicate little plants with shoots less than a foot.  Throughout the summer I've been harvesting rhubarb off about all the plants. 

I struggled with a rhubarbian dilemma.  I started out trying the Texas method, which called for planting from seed and harvesting the entire plant as an annual, rather than a perennial.  My dilemma was that the plants all seemed to be doing so well, that I thought they might survive and actually establish themselves as perennials.

Unfortunately, as the late summer heated up, some (many) of the plants start dying off.

I'm now down to the potted plant, 1 bare-root and about 5 of the plants started from seed (a couple of which appear to be not long for the world.

The potted plant suffered an early setback; the day after planting it, Leo decided to help us out in the garden by unplanting it.  It's actually survived reasonably well, now protected by a tomato cage.  I think it may actually make it for the long term, dog willing.

All things considered, the rhubarb experiment has gone well.  I've accumulated a bunch in the freezer, donated bags full to Nick and Tee and Tee's family and should be able to harvest more before the plants all die off completely.

I've produced a few crisps (including an abortive attempt using Stevia instead of sugar, bleah!) some rhubarb sauce, but sadly no strawberry-rhubarb pie, because we've only produced about a strawberry and a half from our meager strawberry patch.

Anyway, I declare the rhubarb experiment a success.  I submit as proof, Nicholas with his Rhubarb-Peach Birthday Crisp.

#19 - Make Cheese

It wasn't much, but I'm going to count it.  Alton Brown had an episode of "Good Eats" on milk and one of the recipes he presented was cottage cheese.  Denise put cottage cheese on the shopping list, so I figured I'd buy some skim milk and make the cottage cheese from scratch.

Below we have the curds separating from the whey.  Kind of a weird and interesting process to watch.  Changes the way you think about milk, that's for sure.

The finished product follows.  It was good, but not your stereotypical cottage cheese experience.  The texture was sort of a cross between cottage cheese and crumbled mozzarella. 

I suspect I may have not processed the recipe entirely accurately, so I might need to try again.  Either way, I'm counting it as cheese.  If I can score some goat milk someplace I may try it with that, bur for now I am checking off #19.

#49 - Rent a Storage Locker and Clean Out the House

Boring yes, but earlier this summer we finally rented a storage locker and while the house is not entirely clean we did get rid of a lot of junk.  This was especially helpful with Nick having moved much of his stuff home from "The Hall" in Davis.

Now that Nick and Tee have a new apartment and Nick's stuff has moved to a new home, the storage isn't so critical.  When I check off #50 we'll be able to move stuff back and cancel the storage rental, but until that time it's a big help.

#39 - Dinner in Idyllwild

The weekend before her birthday, Denise decided that the family should go hiking in Idyllwild.  Just a short up and back hike on the Ernie Maxwell Scenic Trail, 2.5 miles from town up to Humber Park.  It was beautiful in Idyllwild, much cooler than Temecula and quite a pretty hike.

We took the opportunity to have her birthday dinner at the Gastrognome, or more correctly Restaurant Gastrognome, and to check off another item on my list.  Sadly, we took no pictures at dinner, but it was very nice.  Gastrognome was always a favorite spot when we lived in Idyllwild forever ago.  It's still quite nice, although I think their fine Scotch menu is more enjoyable on a cold winter's night.

#76 and #82; Play Tennis and Walk to the Mall for Lunch

Nicholas is back in town from Italy, having returned on Wednesday evening.  I haven't blogged about it, because it was his trip and I'll let him give the update on his blog.

Anyway, he and Tee were here today and decided that we should go down to the clubhouse to play tennis.  We sent Denise to Sport Chalet to buy tennis balls while Tee, Nick and I walked to the courts.  (Leo was somewhat dismayed I think, watching us through the fence as we walked off into the commons.  I'm pretty sure he's never seen us go there without taking him along for a walk.)

Denise showed up with the tennis balls and we smashed the ball around the court for a while, Denise and I versus Nick and Tee.  Denise and I lost (surprise), but not too badly.  I had the most home runs, with two shots leaving the yard.  The best anyone else could muster was a ground-rule double by Tee.

After a full set of doubles we played a little cutthroat, one-on-two, with one person rotating out to the bench each game.  We played to six games, with Nick winning, but I was close with five.

This is a good shot of me.

After the tennis we walked the rest of the way to the mall and lunch at the Yard House.  Mmmm, beer!  Having finished lunch we wasted some time in the Williams-Sonoma store, looking at all manner of cookware too expensive to purchase.  Williams-Sonoma sells a lot of uni-taskers; strawberry slicers, avocado pitters, stuff of that nature.  Alton Brown would be appalled.  We did buy a few items, most notably some espresso to make in the stove top espresso maker that Nick brought me from Italy.

From Williams-Sonoma we moved over to the Apple store, just for a few minutes.  Nick played Angry Birds on an iPad 2 while Denise and Tee went back to the Yard House to use their facilities.

Shopping completed, we walked back to the clubhouse.  Denise, Tee and Nick took the car, and I walked the rest of the way home, probably a mistake since it was now mid-afternoon and pretty hot.  Nick actually met me with a water bottle part way back, which was nice.

So, now I need a ruling.  Can I check off two list items at the same time?  Is it fair to incorporate a tennis match into the walk to the mall?

More to the point, I feel like a single tennis match or single walk to the mall doesn't really meet the spirit of the items.  "Play tennis" should probably mean play tennis routinely; maybe once a week or twice a month.  And "walk to mall for lunch" should maybe be every other month or so?

Oh well, I didn't specifically say they had to be recurring, so I'm checking them off.  I'll just have remind myself to keep going.

#69 - Attend a Concert - Jethro Tull at the Greek

Well, it was just pathetic.  Not the concert, the fans.  There was not a lot of growing old gracefully on display.

There's something surreal about waiting for a Jethro Tull concert, old men with trophy wives, conversations quoting Rush Limbaugh and shopping for Porsches in the theatre pavilion.

At one point Denise commented that I was the cutest person she'd seen in attendance, which I considered a sorry indictment of the Tull fan base.  She and the guy seated next to her were speculating on the average age within amphitheater; Denise went with 60, her neighbor was a little more kindly, coming in with an estimate of 58.

So the good news was that I was not the oldest, fattest, baldest, frailest or stupidest of the assembled masses.  The guy sitting behind me was going all out for the latter title.

Fuckin' A!  "Hot Night in Budapest!"  My favorite!

"Farm on the Freeway!"  This is my favorite!

Oh, my fuckin' favorite!  "Locomotive Breath!"

He was either extremely fickle or not clear on the concept of "favorite."  I'm pretty sure he and his party were all co-workers at JPL.

Cannabis, Lipitor and Flowmax were probably all present in about equal quantities.  There were more than a few people "Living in the Past."

Ian Anderson did make a few jokes about the assembled decrepitude, at one point during a flute finale he was making his trademark gyrations, grabbed his groin and said "Shit!", suffering a mock hernia.

Speaking of Ian Anderson, this WAS a Jethro Tull concert after all, he was very good.  Can't quite hit the same notes that he once did, 35 or forty years ago, but who can.  Started off with a bit of "Thick as a Brick" and over the course of the evening played all the tracks from "Aqualung" along with other selections.  I read on the Jethro Tull web site that Ian Anderson had broken his finger back around March.  Apparently, he was able to adapt to playing the flute with one finger splinted, but the guitar was impossible.  The band was forced to cover for him.  Fortunately for us, the splint was off last night and he was playing his own guitar.  Lead guitarist, Martin Barre was excellent, as ever.

A funny thing about Jethro Tull songs, and probably more specifically Ian Anderson's voice, is that they were never the sort where one could easily sing along.  Naturally, that didn't stop people from trying.

This was only my second event at the Greek Theatre, the first being a showing of "A Prairie Home Companion" with Garrison Keillor.   I will say that the PHC fans were better behaved and apparently smarter or maybe just less disoriented by the concept of stacked parking.

And speaking of pathetic, I give you the following...

#7 - Eat Chicago-style pizza in Chicago

SCORE!  On the recommendation of Jane Griffin, made a late lunch/early dinner stop at Lou Malnati's Pizzeria in Lincoln Park, Chicago. 

After schlepping luggage through a pair of airport terminals, then from transit station to hotel and then trekking another mile and a half through hot Chicago weather, I was all hot and sweaty and ready for a beverage; Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat Ale, as it turned out. 

Mmmm, Beer!  I quite enjoyed that.

The pizza is not fast food - takes 30 minutes or so to bake - so started off with a Malnati Salad.

After the salad, the star of the show, The "Malnati Chicago Classic."

The sausage; fabulous!  The cheese, cheesy, the sauce, saucy.  The butter crust; awesome!   Yumm.  The only disappointment - we ordered a small, having no convenient way to transport leftovers.

Happily, it appears that Malnati's ships, so I can always order a pie on the web.

We have received other Chicago-style recommendations; Edwardo's Natural Pizza promoted by Denise Haerr and Pizzeria Due, recommended by some helpful Chicagoan on the Red Line.  Actually, I think he was hitting on Denise.

It turns out that there is an Edwardo's just down the street from our hotel and Pizzeria Due appears to be within easy striking distance.  I intend to hit both before I'm done.

#101 - Here's the Beef

OK, we can chalk up another one.  Last night we got the quarter steer I ordered through our CSA at http://www.sagemountainbeef.com/green-fed/.  Ninety pounds delivered to our doorstep.

Our freezer is now very full, with all manner of cuts; top sirloin, porterhouse, flank steak, chuck roast, brisket...the list goes on.  At the rate we have (not) been eating meat, this should last us the better part of a year.

And it should be way healthier than the stuff we previously purchased.  I theorize that it's better to buy locally, sustainably raised meat and encourage the guys who are doing it right than it is to suffer the occasional lapse into Carl's Junior or a Sausage McMuffin

Can't wait to try it.  Maybe a pot roast in the dutch oven this Sunday.  Will keep you posted.

#5 - Finish reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series

Free at last!  As of about 7:00PM yesterday, Monday, April 25, I can say that I have completed Stephen King's Dark Tower septology (imagine taking a trilogy and beating yourself over the head with an additional  four volumes.)  That's right, Volume VII - The Dark Tower, the sequel to the sequel to the sequel to the sequel to the sequel to the sequel of Dark Tower Volume I - The Gunslinger.

I had read the first four volumes way back around the dawn of time, Volume IV probably sometime not too long after it was published in 1997.  After that I pretty much forgot about the series, not really even tracking whether the author had written any other books in the series.

I reintroduced myself to the series when Jake was in Loma Linda, having downloaded an audiobook of The Gunslinger to have something to listen to during those long nights in the hospital.  I never finished it in the hospital because, 1) it was impossible to focus on it - I kept falling asleep and having to rewind my iPod to find where last I was awake - and, 2) because I had forgotten that there is a character of a young kid named Jake who dies (a couple times) in the book.

Anyway, I eventually started listening to the book on some road trip or other and got back into the thing.  I had forgotten nearly everything, so I got the next two installments on audiobook and eventually re-read the paperback edition I had of Volume IV - Wizard and Glass.  Somewhere along the line I got Nick interested in it and ended up buying him the remaining volumes for his birthday.

Parts of the first four volumes were excellent, although when I reached the end of Volume IV this time around I recalled one of the reasons I had sort of dropped the series the first time; it started to get fairly stupid right toward the end.

Anyway, forging ahead, the excellent parts became fewer and farther between.  It was becoming excruciating, in fact.  Saner people asked questions like, "If you're not enjoying it why don't you stop reading?"  C'mon, by the time I reached Volume VII I had invested in probably about four thousand three hundred pages, plus change.  Can you imagine how many miles my lips moved during that amount of reading?  At this point I had to suffer through.

So, I used parts of the 12-hour drive home from Arcata to finish up the final hundred pages or so.

I'm glad I finished it because now that I know how it ends I can definitely say that is was....LONG.

Oh well, it is behind me now and I thank God.

Postscript: In pasting the above link to the official Dark Tower web site I happened upon a frightening piece of news; The Dark Tower - The Movie!  Then OMG!  In 2012 he's COMING OUT WITH A VOLUME VIII!!!!!  Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

#56 - Install an IR remote repeater

OK, this one is pretty boring, unless you are a woman (Denise) who wants her husband (me) to clean up all the A/V remote controls and what not that are piled on the coffee table.

As some may know, we somewhat recently installed new cabinets in our family room and the cable box, Xbox 360, etc. are now all housed inside the cabinets.  I have remote controls for the TV, cable box, sound system and Xbox and need at least three of the four for any given activity.  (Well, that's not entirely true - I only need one remote if I want to listen to my iPod through the Yamaha sound bar.)

Anyway, all of the remotes use infrared, which does not work through a closed cabinet door.  So in addition to the clutter of the remotes all over the room I add the clutter of the open cabinets anytime we're watching TV.

So, this week I bought a Logitech Harmony 700 universal remote control along with a Harmony IR Extender System, basically a set of doohickies with an IR receiver that you mount outside the cabinet and some IR transmitters that you mount inside the cabinet with the AV equipment.  The receiver catches the IR commands from the remote control and relays them to the emitters inside the cabinet and, voila, the equipment responds to your remote's plaintive infrared cries.

The universal remote controls all the devices, automagically selecting the right combination of features for any requested activity.

Want to watch TV?  Push the "Watch TV" button and the remote turns on the TV, selects the HDMI input, turns on the cable box and turns on the sound system.

Switch to a movie?  Push "Watch a Movie" and it turns off the cable box, turns on the Xbox, selects the correct input on the TV and now you're ready to stream Netflix.

An added benefit of the new remote control is that it eliminates use of the game controller when streaming movies with the Xbox.  I felt like a moron controlling movies with the joysticks and triggers and miscellaneous buttons on the controller.  Now I can watch movies with the standard tool of the couch potato trade.

Blow Glass => Rowing Shell

I have changed yet another list item.  I'm not sure my inconsistency is consistent with the intent of the originators of this whole list idea, but I figure I made several mistakes in the drafting of the original, so WTF.

I'm watching "Good Will Hunting" this evening and there's a scene (brief though it may be) with someone rowing somewhere in Boston in some location that my sister Kathy would probably recognize, and it reminded me that I've always wanted to be someplace where I could get up at 0-dark-thirty, haul my shell down to the water and go for a row.

I've liked the idea ever since George Peppard, rowed about in the opening scenes of Banacek, way back in the early 70's.  And just recently I saw The River Wild, with Meryl Streep rowing a shell, probably in the same area of Boston, for all I know.


I originally had "Blow Glass" on my list, mostly because of a mistake.  That was supposed to tie in with the next item on the list which was to learn to make neon signs.  What I should have said was "bend glass" which would have been more appropriate for making neon.  So, I decided to just drop the blowing thing altogether.

As it turns out, rowing a shell may be a bigger challenge than anticipated.  A quick Google search on rowing shells turned up Maas Boats, and a quick search of the product specs yields no boats rated for more than 240 pounds of rower.  A Google search for "rowing shells for fat people" yeilded little worth further investigation.

Damn, I may actually have to lose weight.

#80 and #94, Carpool and Have Knives Sharpened

Quick note that, with help from Nicholas, I can check off #94 - Have my knives professionally sharpened.  We dropped some of them off one Saturday at Kitchen Fantasy (a silly name;  all they sell is cooking stuff - that's not my kitchen fantasy) in Temecula.  Actually, since they couldn't have the knives back until Monday I decided not to leave all my knives, keeping one so that I'd have something to cook with over the weekend.  Nick picked up the sharpened knives and dropped off the extra one on Monday, so by Tuesday or so they were razor sharp.  I have yet to cut myself with them, but it's only a matter of time.

I am also checking off #80 - Carpool.  I have carpooled quite a bit previously with a couple office mates, but let it lapse for most of the last year or so while I was spending almost all my time in El Cajon.  Of course, now that we are trying to pool again I am spending a lot of time at Escondido.  Oh well, I'm pooling when I can.  There irritating thing is that I tend to put about 20 miles on my car just getting to and from the carpool pickup spot.  Oh well, at around 4 bucks a gallon, every little bit helps.

Hopefully I will be able to keep my knives sharpened and my car pooling.  Otherwise I'll need to reinstate them on the list.

List Change - #69 is now "Attend a Concert"

So, #69 was never really a "to-do" item anyway, so I have decided to change that to "Attend a Concert."

Jethro Tull

Convenient, because I just ordered tickets to Jethro Tull's 40th Anniversary Aqualung USA Tour concert at the Greek Theater.  It will be just like old times at Jethro Tull concerts, except that this time I'll have a date and less hair.  Oh, and in the old times a pair of tickets didn't run $200.

#15 Revisited: I Have Consumed the Fruits of my Labor and Lived to Tell the Tale

Well, this was fun!  All three variations are pretty tasty, but I think the salt-cured need to cure a little longer and the water-cured can use a little longer soak in their brine.

The lye-cured olives taste surprisingly olivey and are the clear winner.  Also, they cured the quickest and you can't beat the adrenaline rush of cooking with caustic chemicals.  Any day you have to glove-up to prevent injury from something you're planning to eat is a good day.

Lye-Cured, Salt-Cured and Water-Cured (Kalamata-style)

Having tasted of my olives and finding them palatable, I'm calling #15 complete.  Now if I can just get my olive trees to produce I will be a happy man.

Next up - some Tapenade!

#57 - Remote controlled power supply for our AV

Another one down.

We consume standby power in this household like it was wrapped in cheese.  In an effort to rein in some of that power consumption I bought a Belkin Conserve remote controlled power strip and hooked it up to the home theater system in our living room.

We now have the home theater receiver, subwoofer, DVD player, TV and turntable all connected to the remotely controlled outlets on the strip.  Only the DVR is connected to an "always-on" outlet, since it has to stay on to record programs as scheduled.

In theory, this should help reduce our electricity consumption and thereby our monthly bills.

While I was behind the entertainment center I took the opportunity to install a preamp for my turntable.  I haven't been able to use that since I upgraded the receiver (new receivers not bothering with phono inputs, since CD is supposed to be so much superior.  Pffffttt!)  Now at last I can pull out all those classic Jethro Tull LPs.

Anyway we will see how the next electric bill looks.  And then we'll have to see what we can do about the cheese.

#15 - Cure Some Olives

Last weekend while at the Wilkins' in Los Olivos, I decided to get a start on item #15, "Cure Some Olives, No Matter What Ails Them."

Doug and Sue have some giant-ass olive trees in their yard.  They are beautiful, but apparently the bane of Doug's landscape maintenance existence.  They dump their fruit indiscriminately about the yard creating a big purple mess wherever they splat.

I decided to help them out by taking a few pounds off their hands.  I would post pictures of the harvesting, but I didn't have our camera and Sue's pictures are posted on Kodak's photo sharing site where I wasn't allowed to download.  You can actually see the slide show by clicking on the link, but I am in several of the pictures, so how good can they be.  Anyway, the show features Doug standing on one of his drywalling ladders, stripping olives from the trees and me crawling around gathering them all up.

When we got home on Sunday I busied myself washing and sorting olives and dispatched Denise to Home Depot (primarily for railroad ties for my retaining walls) with instructions to pick up some lye.  I figured they would surely have it and if not, I assumed she could get it at Albertson's.  WRONG!  Lye is apparently very difficult to come by.  Turns out after a little online research that lye is apparently used in the manufacture of methamphetamine, so many places have stopped carrying it.

So, I gave up, temporarily, on the lye-cured olives I had planned and instead started two batches, one water cured (destined for Kalamata-ness) and the other salt cured.

As with most things, I have no frickin' clue what I am doing, but am forging ahead anyway, in this case with the assistance of a paper on olive curing from UC Davis.

The water-cured olives apparently have the advantage of being ready for consumption in a relatively short time, 5 to 6 weeks.  I started a batch last week (the jar with the reddish-looking ones) and today transferred them from their final water soak and into the briny concoction where they are supposed to remain for about a month.  These are tiny little olives, so I'm guessing they will be well brined in more like a fortnight.  (Is a fortnight anything like a dog year? New York minute?  One night in a fort feels like fourteen days?)  I also started a second jar of water-cured this morning (the black jar in the photo.)

The salt-cured ones will take a bit longer.  I am not truly optimistic about them, but what the heck.  I contrived a small curing container with a 2-liter plastic bottle.  I punched some holes in the bottom so that liquids could escape and lined the bottom with cheesecloth so the salt could not.  It seems like it might be working, although I am using Kosher and not pickling salt as prescribed by UCD.  They are supposed to get a weekly toss to redistribute everything, their first being this morning.  So, I can confuse people by telling them that I tossed my olives this morning.  Should that be cookies?  The olives seem to be coming along.  I hope they turn out to be worth their salt.

Not having given up entirely on lye-curing, I ordered some lye on line.  Sadly, it's kind of a dangerous chemical, so next-day air is not an option.  It is shipping UPS ground and god only knows when it will get here.  I'm afraid my olive harvest will be well past the point where it should have been curing by the time the lye arrives, but oh well, I guess it will wait until next year.  Or, I could always use it to make pretzels.  Or soap.  Or crystal meth, I guess.

Actually, since I've been ordering lye and researching lye's link to methamphetamine, I should be a little careful about those kinds of comments.  I'd be more worried is we were still under the Bush administration, but I suppose there's still some likelihood that the someone from the DEA or Riverside Sheriff could show up at my door.

One last note, as long as you're here anyway, I thought you might like an update on #25 - Grow Rhubarb.  My seeds are doing OK, despite my best efforts to raise them (my best efforts usually being fatal.)  Knock wood.

Look at how cute they are.  Their stems are evening turning a nice rhubarbic red already.

I hope I don't kill them.

#100 - Join a CSA

Last Tuesday (February 8) we received our first produce shipment from the Inland Empire CSA.  A huge array of produce, most of it unrecognizable.

Actually, with a little forensic analysis we figured that we had (spiraling clockwise from the top left toward the center in a whirling vortex of vegetation), green leaf lettuce, carrot-top cilantro, a couple pictures of the whole mass of produce, baking avocado, a bag of arugula, purple & green mustard greens, the box it all came in, some other kind of greens, broccoli leaves, some more greens, red leaf lettuce, radishes, a bag of spinach maybe, green garlic, spring onions, beets, and assorted citrus.  Oh, and there is some regular cilantro in there someplace.

Immediately applied some of the greens to a Sauteed Greens and Potato Gratin.  The recipe also incorporate some of the green garlic and spring onions.

To be perfectly honest, there is a lot of pressure to try to eat this much produce all in a single week.  We've been throwing together assorted sauted greens, salads, pasta dishes, etc.  Some Penne Pasta with Arugula and Pepita Pesto turned out pretty nice.  And Nicholas made a very nice Penne with Greens and Chick Peas.

So, this is fun.  And so far, so good.

#41 - Getting a Start on Brewing Beer from Scratch

I made a first feeble step toward this item today by making a pre-sale order for hop rhizomes from MoreBeer.com.

I ordered two each of the Chinook and Columbus Rhizomes, the web site having claimed that both varieties do well in hot dry areas, for which I'm sure Temecula qualifies.

Next up I'll have to order some barley.

So, now while I wait for the folks at More Beer to receive their order and then ship mine, I'm busy researching Hop Toxicity in Dogs.  Thanks to Lia, a frequent commenter on my Jake's Rehab blog, I'm aware that ingestion of hops can cause Malignant Hyperthermia in dogs.  A good thing that she mentioned that actually, because I probably would have been composting the spent hops from my homebrewing.  It appears that most, if not all, of the documented cases involved dogs eating the spent hops, which makes sense, because they'd be soaked in all that good wort which would likely attract any self-respecting dogs.  It also turns out that greyhounds are particularly susceptible to MH.  Leo is not very greyhound-like.

Interesting factoid: were you aware that there is a National Animal Poison Control Center.  I wasn't.

Anyway, I have explained to Leo that if he eats my hops he will be receiving a gastric lavage, an enema, activated charcoal, IV fluids, cold baths and a sternly worded lecture.  He seems to understand the concept, but I'll be fencing them in (or him out), just to be safe.

He's probably at very low risk: with my brown-thumb there's little likelihood that my rhizomes will actually produce.