November 21

It's Saturday. We're catching up on the chores we avoided last weekend by visiting my Mom in Arizona.

Speaking of said trip, I took a little heat for my post visit post about being frustrated by my wife's driving. For those who took exception, I can only say that if you have never ridden with my wife you need to experience it before passing judgment.

I have two major concerns.

1. Riding in the left lane and consistently forcing people to pass on the right. Mostly this concerns me because I’m sitting on the passenger side and first in line for a drive by shooting.
   
2. The stuff she eats while driving. Salads? Broccoli & cheese stuffed baked potatoes? Eating those is a two-handed operation. How is she steering? “One hand on your burrito and the other on the wheel” is my mantra.
   
   Well, three major concerns.
   
3. I’m old and don’t have much time to live and don’t want to spend any more time than necessary in transit.
   
   OK, four…
   
4. Aging is supposed to slow as one approaches the speed of light. So, the way I drive I’m actually increasing my longevity.

Oh and, I do NOT channel Mario Andretti and Spartacus while driving. It’s Jackie Stewart and Judah Ben-Hur.

Regardless, Denise delivered us safely back to our happy home, which I will confess is the important thing.

So, today we started off in the garden, which we haven't seen much of lately. It's dark so early it's hard to get anything accomplished out there during the week. Here it is late November and we're still pulling things out of the garden like crazy; tomatillos, eggplants, zucchini, bell peppers, jalapenos, cherry and roma tomatoes, anaheim chiles, grapefruit, and even a couple green beans.

After the garden, we started cleaning out the fridge and freezers in anticipation of Thanksgiving. Need someplace to put all the groceries for next Thursday. Cleaning out the fridge is always dangerous, because I find about 500 things I'd forgotten we had in there and immediately start preparing a bizarre assortment of foods. Frozen grapes, green olive tapenade on sourdough, sirloin burgers, pumpkin butter, seared albacore with a wasabe/soy dipping sauce. Found a boat load of frozen lime juice from last years lime crop so I felt obligated to mix up a few Margaritas.

Anyway, this evening we actually have freed up enough room to get our turkey into the fridge.

Thanksgiving should be fairly nice. Both the boys will be home for the holiday and we'll have a few others of my family up for dinner.

Jake is scheduled to arrive at Ontario airport Monday morning, flying down from Sacramento where he is supposed to be spending the weekend with his brother. Hopefully he makes his flight and arrives on time as he has an appointment with his surgeon at Loma Linda also on Monday morning. This will be a follow-up to his earlier surgeries and prep for upcoming surgery to install a dental implant to replace the tooth knocked out in his crash.

Nick has class through Wednesday, so he will not be home until late that evening. The good news for Nick is that my Extra Special Bitter will have completed its required two weeks of bottled fermentation and should be ready to drink. Of course, I have no idea what it's going to taste like, so maybe it will be less than good news.

I also purchased an ingredient kit for some Holiday Ale that I'd like to try for Christmas. Nick wants me to wait until he's home before starting the brew so that he can observe the process. Oh well, what's another recipe when it comes to Thanksgiving.

Over the River and Through the Desert...

...to grandmother's house we've been. We are actually winging along on Interstate 10 in the middle of nowhere, somewhere a little west of Blythe. Denise is driving, as you may have guessed. While I don't know if California's ban on texting while driving applies to blogging I think it's best not to test it.

Actually, Denise insisted on driving so that I will not have to be frustrated by driving in the Sunday evening traffic and can instead relax in the passenger seat being frustrated by her driving. But that's another story.

We drove over to my Mom's house in Prescott, AZ, on Friday evening after work, a pleasant little 6 hour drive. Because my Mom is a sucker for dogs we brought along our little Leo. He is a very good traveler as it turns out, although it's occasionally difficult to get him out of the car for a short rest break and, once out, he can be difficult to get back in. It's not like at 154 pounds I can lift him in if he doesn't want to go.

Of course, the downside of bringing Leo is that he needs a place to sleep. Mom's guest room has a double bed with barely enough room for Denise and me. Leo normally starts out the night on his own bed on the floor, but eventually he gets cold or lonely or just figures "why should I sleep on the floor when they have a bed" and tries to sneak in between the two of us. Leo is actually surprisingly adept at sneaking into our king-sized bed at home. Double bed, not so much. We spent half of each night trying to convince him to get the hell out of our bed. I would have locked him out of the room, but I was afraid he'd go climb in to Mom's bed and smother her.

We were paying my mother a birthday visit, only a month late as it happens. As a belated birthday present I cooked a couple of her favorite meals; Shrimp and Jalapeno-Cilantro Pesto Pizza on Saturday night and Eggs Benedict this morning. At some point over the weekend Denise was discussing assisted living accommodations with Mom, who was saying that with any luck she'll just have a massive heart attack and be spared having to make that transition. If she keeps having me cook for her she will almost certainly get her wish. Her cardiologist would probably shoot me.

The Eggs Benedict were fabulous and not without a great deal of drama. They are something of a pain-in-the-butt to make, trying to get the toasted English muffins, Canadian bacon, poached eggs and Hollandaise all to come together at the same time. Since I could not find a saucepan to my liking I melted the butter in the microwave. Concerned that it might not have completely melted I decided to zap it for an extra 20 seconds or so and the whole mass exploded throwing 1/4 cup of butter over every interior surface of the oven. Nothing worth eating comes out of my kitchen without a fair amount of profanity, and this was no exception. I quickly decided that my choice in saucepans was not as bad as originally thought and melted up a bunch more butter.

Mom apparently enjoyed the results despite the tantrum. Leo was lobbying for a taste, but she wasn't falling for that. (I slipped him a leftover slice of Canadian bacon dipped in Hollandaise which he actually seemed to savor.)

Aside from cooking we spent a lot of time playing Pinochle and I did a few of my semi-annual chores around her house including replacing all the batteries in her smoke detectors. She has a boat load of them, so it's a bigger job than you might think.

This morning I played orthopedic surgeon to Mom's Santa Clause statue. She has a sort of plastic/ceramic Santa that stands about 4 feet tall. He's kind of heavy so she asked me to lift him out of his box so that she'd be able to set him up in her living room a little later this year. When I lifted him out of the box he came out without his feet. They were snapped off, still attached to the plaster base. He's kind of a stupid design, very heavy up top with very delicate ankles. Kind of like a thoroughbred. Mom said that he had been repaired once before by my brother-in-law, but the repair had obviously failed. Never missing an opportunity to embrace my inner MacGyver, I leaped to the rescue. I applied some internal splints of rolled up cardboard and about a pound and a half of hot melt glue and Santa was once again standing on his own two feet.

We big Mom farewell this afternoon and headed west. We'll see her again around Christmas when she comes over to southern California.

(It's time for short commercial break: I have to give kudos to Verizon, because my broadband wireless card has had a signal for almost the entire trip.)

In other news, I bottled my Extra Special Bitter on Thursday night. If all goes well it should be ready for consumption by Thanksgiving. My first batch, the Imperial Blonde Ale, should have completed it's recommended 3 weeks of aging this weekend. I have one waiting in the fridge at home to be consumed as we get the Pilot unloaded and Leo fed.

Short aside; Leo is such a good boy in the car, he's been curled up on his bed in the back and laying there so quietly you'd forget he was there. That is until Denise asked for a snack. I reached into the cooler for a piece of string cheese and Leo's head suddenly popped into the front seat. Nothing motivates that boy like a piece of cheese. He can be sound asleep in our bedroom when I open the cheese drawer in the fridge and, poof, he appears in the kitchen.

It occurs to me that I'm very bad about keeping things up to date in this blog. It seems like less than a week since I last posted, but it's been almost two. Consequently I've neglected to mention our trip up to De Luz last weekend. De Luz is up in the hills west of Temecula, a very nice area apparently ideal for growing avocado orchards and home owners associations. We were invited to a party in a friend's avocado grove. It was a very nice time, or at least what I can remember of it. I was pretty much hammered by the end of the evening. Apparently several people said they did not think I looked drunk, which can only mean that they too were hammered. Denise was kind enough to drive me home. I do remember preparing some queso dip in my Dutch oven. I think it was sauted chorizo, onion, garlic, mushrooms and poblano peppers with shredded Oaxaca and Pepper-Jack cheeses. Good and good for you.

I will try to do better about keeping this thing up to date. Big news coming pretty soon, as Jake will be home for the Thanksgiving holiday starting next Monday. Humboldt State shuts down for the entire Thanksgiving week. Nick on the other hand has classes through Wednesday, so we probably won't see him until very late Wednesday night or in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning. When he does get home I'll have to get his opinion of my beers. I hope he likes them.

Netflix Owes Me an Evening of My Life Back!

OK, I sat down the other evening fully prepared to dedicate my undivided attention to the fine art of the cinema with a DVD of "Night of the Living Dead" a la Netflix. The remake, not the original George Romero version. It was supposed to be here for Halloween, but the timing got messed up.

Two thirds of the way through the movie the DVD started screwing up, halting and pixelating until finally the whole thing hung and I had to eject the DVD. Repeated attempts at cleaning the disc failed to correct the problem. A final cleaning accompanied by a flourish of expletives actually resulted in the DVD playing through to the thrilling conclusion. Unfortunately, by that time I was completely out of the undead mood.

Netflix is to blame! What am I, their quality control?!?!? Now, I appreciate that Netflix will cheerily send a copy of an damaged DVD so that I might resume watching, but at that point what is the point? I mean, I spent the entire evening establishing the proper mood, by which I mean I lowered the lights and turned on the home theater system. Denise was totally engrossed I am certain, her demeanor notwithstanding.

Oh well, I will have to frighten her with the undead in Nick's closet. I was concerned that the undead in the closet were in fact actually dead, my batch of ESB started on Sunday demonstrating not the least sign of fermentation. I was afraid that my yeast were dead and I would be holding an impromptu funeral in the backyard. Turns out (I think) that the stuff was just not warm enough. The label on the yeast stated that for best fermentation the brew should be kept at a temperature above 70F. Apparently they weren't kidding. The LCD thermometer on my fermenter has been showing 69F pretty consistently. I applied a heating pad to the exterior of the bucket and it appears that fermentation has begun, the little yeasts as happy as clams or as close to clam happiness as unicellular beings are capable.

As long as the heating pad doesn't set fire to our house, all may well be well.

Hmmmm Beer!

My home brew is progressing, having completed it's bottle fermentation the weekend before last. Technically, it was supposed to age for another 3 weeks, but I felt it would be important to try a sample at the start of the aging process so that I would have some basis for comparison.

So, the verdict? Well, I'm not quite sure. It definitely tasted like some manner of ale. Denise seems to think it is very good, but she hasn't really tried that much and doesn't have the breadth of experience that I've acquired through many years applying myself to the study of beer. The kit was a recipe for an Imperial Blonde Ale, according to the literature ideal for those who like big blondes. Unfortunately, for all my vast experience I can't recall that I've ever had an Imperial Blonde Ale, so for all I know my batch could be a perfect rendition.

I tried another sample yesterday, after the first week of aging. It was good enough that I decided I'd better sample another today, just to make sure everything is still progressing appropriately. Alright, I made chili for dinner and who can eat chili without a beer. If I continue to find excuses to sample the stuff I may exhaust the supply before the aging is finished.

Since my first attempt doesn't appear as though it will turn out to be a complete failure I've decided to forge ahead and start a second batch. I found a brewer's supply in Riverside that seemed to have a little bit of everything and spent a little while chatting with one of the employees, a guy who didn't look old enough to be drinking beer, let alone offering advice on home brewing. He was pretty helpful though and I ended up leaving with ingredients for an Extra Special Bitter.

While browsing the shop I noticed a couple of different versions of brewing software. So, arriving at home I fired up the laptop, Googled 'home brewing software' and a few minutes later was running a trial version of "BeerSmith."

It turns out that after a few minutes of playing with the software I realized I haven't got much of a clue about what goes into making beer. Yeast flocculation values? Decoction mash profiles? Strike/infusion temperature? International Bitterness Units? Brewhouse Efficiency? I have much to learn grasshopper.

Ignorant or not, I fired up the stove and boiled up the ESB this afternoon. It is now quietly fermenting in Nick's closet. I think I made fewer mistakes with this batch and I also think I used better ingredients. I'm optimistic, which is never a good sign. Hope for the best and expect the worst is usually the wiser course.

I think that after two batches I have realized that I need better equipment. (A man should never really admit that he has inadequate equipment, but there you go.) Sometime before my next batch I need a bigger brew kettle and a wort chiller.

In other news, Halloween has come and gone. One trick-or-treater was all we could muster and that was Donovan from next door. I guess technically I could claim 2 trick-or-treaters, since I took the opportunity to serve Donovan's dad a little tequila while everyone else was busy admiring Dono's costume.

Of course, trick-or-treaters or not, all the candy will be eaten. Unfortunately by Denise and me.

Halloween is not the holiday that it used to be, actually hasn't been for quite a while. The boys were past trick-or-treating years ago and we've never had many visitors. There are no sidewalks or streetlights in our neighborhood and the houses are too far apart to afford a reasonable candy to distance ratio.

I didn't even bother to carve a pumpkin this year, having gotten all pumpkined-out when our pumpkins matured earlier this summer. After so many pumpkins from the garden I wasn't particularly motivated to by a pumpkin from the supermarket. This is not to say that I did not carve a Jack-o-Lantern. I improvised...

...with a leftover spaghetti squash. OK, it's non-traditional, but I wasn't going to eat this squash anyway. Might as well put him to good use.

More to Tell

It's getting harder to make time for these posts, but I will keep muddling through. My notes tell me that I was supposed to mention Wii, beer and Nick, but now I can't remember quite exactly what I was supposed to be blogging about. Oh well, I will start running off at the keyboard and something will end up in the post.

We Have a Wii

Embracing our second childhood, we've decided to start investing in video games. Actually, we purchased the Wii Fit, on the assumption that it will be way less embarrassing attempting yoga in front of a virtual trainer than it would be with an actual human being. And, it is actually kind of fun. I am getting a little tired of the way the system sort of wheezes when I step onto the balance board, but overall it's entertaining.

I suggested that to achieve the greatest fitness improvements one should Wii naked, allowing the greatest range of motion, freedom of movement and, if nothing else, serving as a powerful appetite suppressant. Denise is not supportive of this notion.

The bad news is that I have developed a little bit of Wii shoulder, hyper-extending the thing playing Wii Tennis. The good news is we haven't hurled the remote through our HDTV or knocked over any lamps or things of that nature. And we've had no wee Wii heart attacks working out, which is a good thing, given that our virtual trainers are probably not CPR certified.

Biology Experiment

I have, at long last, started my home brewing experiment. Actually the experiment has been running for the better part of three weeks and is approaching fruition. I refer to this as a biology experiment because God only knows what is growing in those bottles. I mean, the little yeasties are hopefully in there converting sugars to alcohol and CO2, but for all I know I've killed them somewhere along the process. And the greater concern is not that I've killed the benevolent yeasts, but that I've introduced some sort of bacteria that's converting everything to toxic waste.

I freely admit that I may have made plenty of mistakes in cooking up my first batch. I failed to introduce my hops at the appropriate time during the boil, proceeded to boil the stuff too long, for all I know may have contaminated the whole batch and who knows what else. Strangely, after a week of fermentation I went ahead with the bottling and sneaking a little taste of the results after the primary fermentation, I was surprised to find something that tasted oddly like an ale. Who'd have thunk it.

The bottle conditioning has been proceeding for a week and I've yet to have any bottles explode in the closet, so that's good news. Next Saturday is B-day. I'll crack one for a taste test then, but the recipe calls for another 3 weeks of aging for best flavor. For this first batch I'll be happy if I come up with something that will at least make a good marinade or beer-battered fish, even if it is otherwise undrinkable.

If it is the least bit drinkable you will be among the first to know.

Higher Learning

Nicholas continues to apply himself to his college education as exemplified in a personal best ski jumping for UC Davis.

This last weekend we drove to Davis for another UCD Waterski Team Parent Day and Benefit Dinner. It was a lot of driving, but a lot of fun as well. My advice to anyone who cares is to prolong ones college career as long as financially viable. Based on Nick's experience I think I'd like to retire to college. I mean ski all day, party all night, plagiarize the occasional term paper; what's not to like?

Jacob made the sojourn by bus and train from Humboldt to join us at the dinner and then joined Nick and team for the post event partying. Denise and I returned to the hotel for an attempt at a good night's sleep.

We arrived home late Sunday night after a 7-hour drive, pretty tired, but glad to be home. Leo seemed a little peeved at us for having abandoned him for the weekend. It took a while, but he finally warmed up to us and before long I was covered in dog slobber.

Time to go to bed. I am still really tired from last night's drive. And I'm sure Leo will want to get a little more slobber on me before the night is through. More later...

A Brief Post from the Man Himself

Jacob made it home this weekend and we prevailed upon him to provide the following post, succinct though it may be...

Hello all,

I am writing this from the small town of Temecula and as far as I can tell, it’s about the same as when I left. It’s weird how strange civilization looks after you’ve been in the forest for a couple months though. What’s up with all these red, yellow, and green lights above the intersections? I can’t say I particularly miss driving. It’s a lot more fun to eat food and walk then it is to go to Shell and watch those irritating advertisements as you fork over your money. I truly realized how small Humboldt is when it took me longer to drive to a friend’s house than walk across Arcata. Speaking of which, HSU (and I guess college in general) is amazing. If it wasn’t for all these damn classes it might even be fun. I kid… mostly (if anyone’s thinking about pursuing a degree in botany, good luck). I found myself becoming much fonder of eating the subject matter than looking at its gametangia. The salad bar is a daily now. Apparently everything’s picked the same morning they serve it, which is supposedly good. That’s about the only consistent good food except for drinks (my favorites are Nantucket Nectars, Calypso Lemonades, Guayaki tea, and a reverse energy drink called Purple Stuff whose slogan is “lean with it”). Everything is good, but I can’t say I’m too stoked on the dorms. They were designed by a prison architect and it’s apparent by the design and I feel like there’s equal yelling to a penitentiary. The guards are a lot nicer though and I haven’t gotten tazed yet. Overall, I’m very pleased with my choice in college and I don’t think my spirits will be dampened by the impending rainfall.

Much more to tell, but I wanted to get his posted this evening. Bye.

A Busy Week

It has actually been a very busy week or so since last we spoke.

I suppose I should update the Squid Ink Risotto incident. It was only fabulous. Actually, the squid ink adds a very subtle flavor, but the color is unmistakeable. I'm not sure I'll get the black out of my cutting board anytime soon. And really, the surprising thing was that the Green Onion Vinaigrette was probably the highlight of the dish. We made potato salad the other night and dressed it with the leftover vinaigrette and it was very good. If you are interested it's on The Food Network's web site.

The downside of my Spanish food order was the anchovie stuffed olives. Eeeww! I was expecting something significantly less fishy. Now I have to figure something to do with the two cans I ordered. Maybe they'll work OK in some Putanesca sauce.

I had thought earlier in the week that we may have had a death in the family, but my resuscitatory skills seem to have saved the day. Back about the time of Jake's accident I had been baking up sourdough goodies on a regular basis. My Mom had brought the starter home from her trip to Alaska and I had been feeding it ever since. Sometime around the accident I put the starter in the fridge and hadn't thought about it in months. When I finally took it out this week it had a leathery sort of skin developed on the top and looked like it was dead. Not wanting to give up on it I pried off the nasty bit of skin, gave it a good feeding and it started to come around. This morning I was able to fire up some pretty decent sourdough biscuits (which I of course smothered in sausage gravy).

The biscuit making reminded me of making biscuits when the boys were little. I would make penguin shaped biscuits, painting their beaks and tuxedos with yellow and black food coloring. The boys liked the biscuits, but were not too hot on the gravy. The first time I tried to serve it to Nick he was about 4 years old and said "If I ate that it would kill me." I had to agree that it eventually probably would, but it would take quite a few servings and a general lack of cardiac fitness.

I was sort of bummed about Jake not visiting, but it turns out that he will be coming home next weekend. Flying into LAX on Friday night and out the following Tuesday morning, with an orthodontist visit on Monday. I am not looking forward to venturing into the jaws of the beast that is the LA freeway system on a Friday night, but worst case scenario I will find a bar to kill time until the traffic thins out. Maybe by midnight. Of course, then Jake will need to be the designated driver. While he is home, perhaps I can persuade him to do a guest blog entry so that everyone can hear how the horse is doing straight from his mou...keyboard.

Leo continues to entertain in the absence of any children to keep us occupied. The other night he made a new friend...

Actually, hearing Leo you'd have thought he was planning to eat the guy. Of course, if he had actually gotten the thing off the fence he would have had his paws full. Nasty looking little possum. I guess technically it's an opossum.

For some reason, Leo has lately taken to disemboweling his squeaky toys, systematically sorting through his toy box and ripping the stuffing out of anything that squeaks.

This morning, having exhausted his supply of squeaky toys, he had to console himself by ripping the skin off a tennis balll.
This weekend brought more efforts to process all the stuff from our garden. I was cooking up the last of our pumpkins on Saturday morning when I decided to try something I thought to be truly original. It turned out following a Google search that the idea was not entirely original, but I think my particular approach is unique. Denise claimed they were delicious, but she has to humor me so I don't know for sure.

Pumpkin Enchiladas

For the Sauce
1 Tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp chipotle chile powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 cup chicken broth
1-1/2 cups pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Saute garlic in olive oil, add remaining ingredients, simmer 15 minutes. Thin with chicken broth if sauce is too thick.

Filling
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup roasted corn kernels
1/2 cup diced green chili
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1 cup grated Oaxaca cheese
1/4 cup grated Cotija cheese

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until tender. Add corn, green chiles, pumpkin and spices. Cook 5 minutes, longer to thicken sauce if necessary. Stir in cheeses.

Assembly

8 corn tortillas

Cover bottom of baking dish with a couple spoons of the sauce. Dip a tortilla in simmering sauce to soften. Place tortilla in dish, cover with some filling, roll seam side down. Repeat with remaining tortillas. Top with more Oaxaca and Cotija cheese. Bake at 350 (Fahrenheit) for about 20 minutes.

You could substitute canned chipotles for the chipotle powder and Monterey Jack for the Mexican cheeses. I'm thinking that, just for kicks, next time I might try some grilled chicken instead of the corn and green chiles in the filling.