Best Of 2017

Wife has been going through a process of winnowing down her pictures from the year to come up with the few that will go into her 2017 slide show and the even fewer that may be of print up and frame quality (that will be probably no more than 5 out of thousands). She encouraged me to do the same. I've never done this before. I was interesting. There was a clear difference in the overall quality from the first trip of the year to the second trip clearly a result of the workshops we took. None of mine will be print quality as I take them in JPEG instead of raw which would capture much more information (and require much more adjustment with a higher level of editing than I am capable of).  But here are my selections for the slide show.

Channeling Italia - Taking Pasta To The Next Level

Coming back to Terra Albuquerqua after each trip usually involves the integration of the latest cooking revelations I have gained from whatever cooking class I took during the trip. I had a mission cooking learning-wise when we planned the Italy trip. And that was to try and learn the secrets that make pasta in Italy so incredibly good, even when it is very simple. And indeed, there did seem to be a special component...the flour. This was what our teacher told us. It is the flour. Made from semolina wheat it has different properties that the soft wheat flour we have here. Our teacher claimed that even hard wheat flour grown in the US would not substitute. And he told us a particular brand which could be purchased on Amazon (All hail the great Amazonian God for whom all products spew forth...and forgive me Great Rodent God but I'd rather have Italian flour and pasta making attachments than lines and poor expensive food).

Behold!

Authentic, Imported Italian Semolina Durum Flour

(a birthday present from #3 via The Great Amazon)

Making homemade pasta using my hand cranked machine is a chore

Our teacher said to just get the attachments for the KitchenAid Mixer

Behold!

Machine powered pasta rolling and cutting attachments for KitchenAid Mixer

(a birthday present from myself to myself via The Great Amazon)

Roller attachment prepared to do battle

Making homemade pasta is really not that difficult

We should have here a picture of our flour built up with a well in it kind of like a volcano in which one puts the beaten eggs.

Unfortunately my 'volcano' walls were too thin and I immediately had a pyroclastic flow going all over the working surface.

Rapid work with the spatula ensured all eggs and flour were secured

Pasta flour and eggs incorporated and ready for kneading

Marcella Hazan in her book, Essentials of Italian Cooking says you should knead for 8 minutes or until the dough is (and I quote) "Smooth as a baby's bottom".

Unfortunately I have no baby's bottoms available to compare so just knead for 10 minutes.

Pasta cut into sections for putting though machine

Pathetic attempt at an 'action shot' of me rolling the pasta.

Hard to do the pasta and hold the phone for the shot at the same time.

Pasta sheets after rolling

And yes they are all different - Homemade means never having to apologize for inconsistency

Finished cut thin pasta

I made one of the very simple Roman pastas - Cacio e Pepe - pasta with Pecarino cheese and pepper.

You just grate cheese, toast a lot of coarse ground pepper in butter, add some of the pasta water (the secret flavor ingredient according to our pasta teacher), work it into a paste, add the pasta, mix, add more water if necessary to get it smooth. Serve with more cheese and pepper on the side

Voilá  - Très Yummy

Analysis

I was quite pleased. It was really good. Definitely a big step up in quality from my prior attempts making pasta. There is a distinct flavor, subtle but which builds as you eat the pasta, and I'm talking about the pasta itself. The pasta had a much more toothsome texture, was able to truly be al dente. 

 

The pasta was also much easier to work with. It took very little additional flour when I was combining and kneading. I used no additional flour while I was rolling. This made the whole process less messy. Finally the automated attachments reduced the work and frustration by many factors over the hand cranked machine. And because there was no additional flour used, they required virtually no cleaning. 

All in all, I was very happy with the result. I believe that homemade pasta is going to be a frequent guest on our Sunday dinner menus in the future.

Christmas Shopping - Photography Style

In recent years, Wife and I have gone through the exercise of buying each other gifts for Christmas.

Gift buying as you get along in your, financial well-being, relationship and age, starts to be difficult. After all most of the time if you want something, you just get it for yourself. And as you get older, you are looking to have fewer things, not more. But we have both agreed that it is nice to have something under the tree. And to open presents. Even if we are pretty sure we know exactly what they will be.

So it was only a week or so ago that we said, 'yes we should do this so let's get a list put together'. I didn't have too much because I had bought myself what I really wanted for my birthday (great reveal in a post coming soon!). But I did have some books because I'm always hungry for books. And I put down some photographic filters. During one of our workshops in Bologna, the photographer was big into filters and it seems a certain kind would solve a problem we run into all the time with glaring light contrasting with deep shadows.

When it comes to all things photographic, I have kind of a second graders mind while wife is working on her Physics post-doctorate. So the Christmas shopping experience looks kind of like this.

Wife - "I think I would like filters too for Christmas"

Wife furiously goes on line, reads, researches, gets up and measures camera lens, goes back on line. This all might take days. During this period, I will get periodic reports, be called in for my opinion on things like how I might use said lens systems, etc.

Wife will continue furiously researching though with more of a focus on now purchasing and what can be gotten at what prices and the trade offs between buying separately or in a package. More days go by.  Occasionally I get called in for input.

Finally, she announces that she is ready to purchase and goes over the decision with me once more. I watch her from my desk looking over the computer screens.

"How's my shopping for your present coming along?"

"Good dear. They promise it will be here before Christmas. We're both getting the same thing so if you get the boxes you can wrap either one for me."

"Great thanks. Love you."

How Christmas shopping should be.

Visit To A Magical Kingdom

A powerful Wizardess contemplates

Hmmmm

A birthday

A perfect time to bring his energy to us

I will call forth my minions and we shall together bring him to us

"Come to me Oswaldo!"

 "Yes, great Wizardess"

"Come to me Minnieo"

"What is your bidding great Wizardess?"

"We shall go forth and bring this one to us"

"Delightful Great One!"

"I shall go forth in my powerful sleigh in joy of the hunt"

"Now we must call upon our army of a stroller soldiers"

"In there hundreds"

"And their thousands"

"And of course we have our secret agent"

"What would you have me do Great Wizardess?"

"Pin him down. Project him to our magical kingdom"

"It will be done"

I toss. I turn. The world is spinning around me

There is a vision

A vision of a Great Rodent Deity

Finally the world starts to stop spinning

Where am I?

In some strange land for sure

Survival

Must think of how to survive

Ah blend in

Become one of the multitude

Now observe

What a topsy turvy world this is

All seem to do their devotions by the practice of standing in line

Lines upon lines upon lines

And giving giving monetary devotion at every turn to the Great Rodent Deity

ARG Cute...too much Cute

What kind of place has a 'birthday salad'?

What kind of place offers restaurant reservations that give you the right to wait 40 minutes until there is an opening?

"If you didn't have a reservations, you wouldn't even be allowed to wait! Bwahahahahahaha!

What alternative? What alternative?

Eating in the blast cooler!

Of course!

Trying to light a candle in the gale

To the birthday devotional offering to the Rodent Deity

I am fighting too hard

Must let myself become one with the magic

Ah a Princess!

(Actual conversation that took place with some minor changes)

"Hello, you are a Princess

I am 70 today and feel being with a Princess would be just the ticket"

"Sir. I am a married woman!"

"Not a problem. I AM A MARRIED MAN"

"Well then let us go forth and give homage to the Great Rodent Deity with standing in long lines and paying through the nose for everything and anything"

ALL HAIL THE GREAT RODENT DEITY!

Taking Stock At The Milestone

In a couple of days I will be officially 70. I have kind of felt like I was there already because of the family surprise party we had back in August when the clan was here.

In a lot of ways 70 feels a lot better rolling off the tongue than 69. I don't know, 69 just seems like such an awkward number. It's that point where you can't possibly fake that you're in your early 60's (which is just the 50's on steroids). But 70, that's a number you can get your hands around. No one is saying '70 is the new 25' or 'Age is just a number'. Nope. 70 is...well it's 70. And that's not young by anyone's definitions with the exception of those who are 85 and older.

I am feeling pretty good about things these days and being the over thinking, over analyzing person I am I kind of did an inventory of what's going well with life and realized there isn't much that I'm unhappy with. Love our lifestyle, traveling and working at a reduced level. Happy with our finances. Feel things are under control and don't have to worry about much. Feel we have good contingency plans for the future when things start deteriorating.

Very happy with my relationships. Love spending time with Wife and helping support the things that are important to her. Cherish the wonderful friendships I have with my children and the sons-in-law. Like how things are developing with the grandchildren considering the difficulties of being so far away.

Health? Honestly, I think in a lot of ways I am in better shape than I have been in a long time. I've lots of ailments for sure (arthritis, glaucoma, asthma, hearing loss). But most of these I've had for a long time and whatever regimes I'm doing seem to have them bothering me less than they have for many, many years. Don't have any illusions that I'm really getting any better but I feel I have more leg strength and better balance than just a few years ago.

Then I did a little exercise and did a quick review of my past. I asked myself, "When was the time you felt better than you do now?" The surprising answer (at least to me) was NEVER. I can't remember any time when I felt as good as I do now. When I was really young? No way. Hated growing up, and young adulthood was miserable until I met Wife. Raising a family? Felt  totally over my head not to mention dealing with all the crap and deprogramming of stuff from my Father. Financially? Ha! We struggled and had crisis after crisis. It wasn't until our 60's that any kind of feeling of getting ahead of the curve took place. Physically and pain? Pain has been with me my whole life because I was involved with athletics and pushing my body my whole life. Couldn't sleep for decades without a lot of painkillers. Seems more under control now.

So yes, I'd have to say that there is no other time in my life that I would have any desire to go back to. Think I am going do even more of what I have been doing...being grateful for each and every moment I have now, immersing myself into what I do each and every day and enjoying the heck out of it for as long as I can.