Pie-duo
Thursday, 26 November 2009
The meaning is totally different, and I know almost no French, nevertheless the phrase rattling around in my head after these two apple pies came out of the oven was “prie-dieux.”
Musings
Texas oysters, Oaxacan carrots
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Special afternoon, down near Pine Mountain, at an oyster roast with most excellent company…thanks much, D&K, for the invite!
Clouds tried to drop some precip, but we sent good vibes skyward and we were spared.
Our hosts made the party pot-luck, and I took this simple pickled carrot* dish, which several people found tasty.
* Spanish lesson: carrots are zanahorias, pronounced something like sah-nah-or-ee-ahz
Back home!
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Late yesterday we pulled up in front of the house. You may not have noted the day we left, but it was in late SEPTEMber!
We logged almost 10K miles, but not quite.
We passed through twenty-one states, if my count is correct.
We visited all close family members not now resident in Georgia (a coup!).
We visited quite a few friends spread out across this fine nation (and missed some, too, unfortunately).
We return home refreshed, and able to face the pile of mail (including scads of pre-election propaganda) accumulated on the dining room table (thanks, James).
I can’t wait to go through the photographs we took while we were gone as a unit—the whole trip’s worth—remembering the flowers, wild critters, and lovely landscapes and glorious skies we saw and captured in digital form. Right now, with only the out-of-focus and otherwise super-crappy pictures deleted, iPhoto shows we accumulated over 11,500 photographs….
Oh, and this picture? Before we left, I got a celebratory (more expensive) stalk of brussel sprouts, and de-sprouted it for a luscious side dish, then stuck the mostly “bald” stalk in the back gardenlet, as a joke?, as an experiment?—I’m not sure at this point. Anyway, we had lots of rain while we were gone (including the days just before we returned), and I discovered today that the stalk is growing!
Plain plains
Monday, 9 November 2009
Out in the desert flats, the horizon is wide. Even in a city.
We made it to Santa Fe* in time to lunch at the highly recommended The Shed. Nothing pretentious, despite the James Beard award posted in the waiting area. And we did wait; the place was mobbed. But the dining area is a series of small spaces, including in an outdoor patio, so while you dine you don’t feel like you’re in a large restaurant (nice!). We had some enchiladas and some carne adovada, all very yum. With the sides, the lunch orders were substantial, so we only wanted a modest sandwich for dinner.
Heading east, we pondered staying in Roy, but the town was just too desolate, and the hotel was right out of the 50s, and not the best of the 50s either. Roy is doing far better than Yates, however. Yates is on the NM state highway map, and even has a sign posted on the road at the east and west ends of town. But “town” it isn’t. Ghost town, yes. Now, it’s a bend in the road with one ranch house and outbuildings. No lights on when we went by at dusk plus a few minutes. Couldn’t tell if the house was abandoned, but there was a looming combine parked out by the road, as if it was for sale.
Even after sunset, we pushed generally eastward. The vegetation and landscape shifted dramatically as we motored beyond Las Vegas (the NM one). We saw pronghorns everywhere in the dying light for a while when we were near the mountains, and then just cattle. Or maybe only the beeves showed up in the dying light. We watched the horizon become a simple dividing line between the blues and greys (along with a few orange-reds from the absent sun) of the sky with the greenish dry yellows of the grasslands. This, after all, is the Great Plains!
* Santa Fe is so fun to photograph that it’s not uncommon for photographers to take pictures of other photographers, simply because they’re part of the landscape.
Karma call
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Several interesting adventures in this day, including a major karma call that ended up just fine (reminder to self: Priuses are pavement vehicles), but the ones I want to mention have to do with wildlife sightings at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Species sighted included snow geese (I think), many sandhill cranes (lacking hills of any sort down on the marshes of the Rio Grande), various ducks, hawks, and small birds, as well as a few (black tailed?) deer (okay, not in the park) and one dog-family creature we’re assured is a NM-sized coyote (much larger than those I know from the East).
Note: if you are in Albuquerque, you can’t do wrong dining at the Indigo Crow in Corrales, most especially if good friends join your table!
Mural building
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Is this an “Only In America” place?
A building decorated annually with murals made of food?
The Heartland contrives some interesting promotions, then perpetuates them for generations.
You may recognize this building from this historic photo; it’s the Mitchell Corn Palace, originally the Corn Belt Exposition. For more info, try WikiPee or their own (cringe) website.
Manistique area tour
Sunday, 4 October 2009
We took a purposeful touristy wander down the Garden Peninsula, to explore the Fayette Ghost Town, which was abandoned by 1900. Or at least, the iron processing the company town was established to do left in the late 1890s, and few people could have stayed in the dwindling community very long after that. This town was so tony they had a race track! We were fascinated by the limestone cliff on the north side of the harbor mouth and by the silvering piers that held up the docks, as much as anything.
We made a dash north from Fayette to Kitch-iti-kipi, and made it into the park before it closed, and rode the second to the last raft trip of the day. F. counted thirty-five lake trout languidly enjoying the cold waters. I thought there was more algae/plantlife in the spring than I’d seen before, but maybe it was the slightly overcast light. A very special place; its charms are difficult to describe.
We were sustained for these excursion by lunch at the Three Seasons Restaurant, on the east side of Manistique. I had whitefish (don’t know if it was from Lake Michigan or Superior), and we shared a pasty as an appetizer. Very yum.
We played footsie with rain all day, and our timing turned out to be impeccable. We had hoped to make this a Lake Superior day, but our decision to head south instead turned out to be per-fect!
Applesauce!
Saturday, 3 October 2009
In amongst all the other hubbub of the day, I went out in the late afternoon and dodged a few raindrops and snagged a few apples. Most were from a tree with limbs that had succumbed to the weight of the crop, and, along with a few from the Macintosh tree, they made great sauce, although not the bright pink of last month’s varieties. The Botanist said he got the Macintosh tissue direct from the place/person in Canada that had the original. This would have been in the mid- or late-1940s or perhaps early 1950s, I think.
Too cool to swim
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
The weather celebrated this final day of September (if you’ll allow me to personify the climate) with a brilliant and clear sky, slight breeze, and general superbness. I could not sit inside any longer and just look out at it, so I took a long meander around the place, checking on the apples, wandering the beach, and generally poking my nose here and there. I also pruned back some dead branches (pruning saw plus dead apple limb over limb removal equals warmth while sawing, just as Aldo Leopold—I think—observed).
The Marquette station predicts a low of 24°F in some places, but hopefully not here. Still, that’s the end of tomatoes and other fragile veggies in peoples’ gardens. I’m trusting that it will improve the apples!
The apples are so heavy on the boughs (no culling, heavy spring bloom that set well) that some limbs are snapping. Cr-ack! The deer should be gathering soon to enjoy this bounty. Meanwhile, I gotta get the picker-basket-thing and nab a few of the rosy high fruits, the better for applesauce!
Blushing tomatoes
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
I have trimmed back the tomato plants for the fourth time, so the MailPerson can get to the door, along with other miscellaneous visitors.
I am glad to see another wave of reddening tomatoes—good eating!