Successful Diner and Other Weekend Events

...or non-events. The diner turned out great. Here are the high notes

Bean Dip - The immersion blender works like a charm and got the bean dip very smooth.

Lamb - I was especially proud of my efforts with the lamb. I started out by inserting garlic, rosemary, and thyme leaves into the meat. Next I rubbed the meat with salt and pepper. The meat went into a ziplock bag with carrots, onions, more garlic, rosemary, thyme, some bay leaves and 3/4 of a bottle of red wine. I marinated this overnight. The meat was cooked over charcoal, grilling both sides then roasting with the grill cover closed for about 25 minutes. The flavor balance was great with the lamb not the flavorings taking center stage and a great crust on the meat.

Wines - We had a dry rose from Provence and a pinot gris from Chehelam in Oregon for the first course and a petit syrah from MarylynRemark winery in Salinas for the main course.

Our guest were a banker and his wife whose son was once neighbors with us. They had a house guest who they brought along. She is a pilot for United Airlines and is in the Air Force reserve. She also was one of the first women to ever be allowed to fly a combat fighter (F-16), a very fascinating person. Her comments on fly the F-16 vs. the A-10. "I liked the F-16. It's fast. But the A-10, it's got a big gun and that's good too."

I also did a quick hike and on Sunday stopped in to seel Pulisha, Tim de Buffalo, grandchildren 1,3 & 4 along with Tim's two children from prior marriage. Grandchild #3, Jocelyn, has been having a tough time with the new additions but found Grandpa to be an easy mark for attention so I go lot's of cuddling from her.

Tim (fyi) has a hernia and is going to be operated on Monday so please send all you best thoughts out to them. Everyone is going a bit nuts in the Pulisha household at the moment.

Weekend Plans - Hike and Cook

Yea guests coming over tomorrow for dinner which means I get to cook something. Menu plan is:

• Homemade bean dip with Indian flavoring (means I get to use both my new spice grinder and my new immersion blender
• Charbroiled Butterflied Leg of Lamb
• Potatoes baked with Tomato Confit
• Salad of Roasted Vegetables
• Melon with Blueberry Sauce
• Shitload of Wine

I will try to take some pictures as I go ala BCD.

This means I have to get up early so I can get some kind of hike in. Somehow I have to find time to also iron shirts and pack because on Sunday AM I'm off to Pulisha and Tim de Buffalo for a quick stay (five kids with Tim's visiting...overnight...I think not!) for a focking good time.

Next week is LA from Sunday to Tuesday, back to ABQ for Tue night, then on to Sioux Center, Iowa on Wed for meetings Thu-Fri and back to ABQ on Saturday.

Mrs. de-I's New Toy

Define Baby Lock:

1. A device used to keep your child from harm
2. A small set of manacles and leg irons to keep your toddler from killing him or herself
3. A device used to lock your child up safely so when you, the parent, is going crazy you don't go after the child.
4. None of the above

The actual answer is none of the above because Baby Lock is actually a brand name...the brand name for a line of very, very expensive sewing machines and not inconsequentially the latest new toy/vehicle for hobby and personal growth.

If any of you read Pulisha's recent ode to her Mom, her sentiments are merely the a shadow of the esteem in which Wife is held in the de-I family. Basically she walks on water and that's just when she's toning it down a bit because in our view she's fully capable of walking on air. So pretty much what Wife wants, I want to get which is probably one of my great motivations for working and building the PG Empire (that and my megalomania). Up until recently this desire has not been terribly disastrous because Wife has had a propensity to study and study and study a proposed purchase. For example it took her two years to pick out a camera. Ergo the time value of money alone often offset a substantial portion of the ultimate price.

Unfortunately in recent months she's become much more pragmatic and decisive. A couple of months ago her sewing machine died. It had labored for some 35 years and although Wife was had been fighting change for over a decade, the time had come. With a blitzkrieg of research you settled upon the Baby Lock Ellure Plus.

THE MACHINE!

This is not the old fashion sewing machine. As with much today it is highly computerized. It can sew, embroider, quilt, and do things I've never even heard of. It does much of this automatically using pre-designed patterns. It even has a USB port so you can go to the internet and download patterns. The instruction book is intimidating onto itself. Wife has signed up for a myriad of courses to get herself up to speed.

A Sample page from the instruction manual

So Wife is busy at work. With her creativity and an automated machine, I'd suggest that everyone whittle down their Xmas gift requests to things that can be sewn, embroidered, or quilted. Should I be worried about Wife's phone calls into getting workers from Nicaragua?

Sample of work from the future sweatshop

A Day to Myself

I'm trying to take a day a week to myself - no work - just trying to do other things and enjoy myself. Of course hiking has been a big part of this an today I went for hike on a trail circuit that I had never been on. I was fortunate to get one of my clients who likes to hike to come along. This was a really fun one about 11 miles with an altitude gain of around 2000 feet. The hike is a loop that starts on the east side of the mountains where I rarely go. Here is the link for a good description of the hike with the contour map. It starts with the biggest climb of the hike going up most of the gain in just over 2 miles. You pick up the rest of the altitude over the next 2 miles and then take a long descent before going back laterally across the mountain to the starting point. This last section was a bit of surprise because it looks like a strait shot but in fact requires going down and up three canyons. The trails are much nicer and easier on the feet on the east side because of the moisture and we saw tons of butterflies of a types of colors.

Getting back around 1 PM, I had lunch and showered and then relaxed with my trusty iPod in the "Hole" (my den). I am really getting into classical music again. I find the headphones allow me to listen to all the intricacies of the music without having to turn the volume way up. This is the first thing I found that really lets me let go of everything and relax. I listened to two symphonies in a row.

Then it was on to making dinner. I am playing around with a technique I first read about in a book MR gave me which is used for pasta sauces but I think can be used for making other types of flavorings as well. The sauce turned out pretty good but my application of it left something to be desired.

I'm on my way to Salinas, CA on Monday and Tuesday to do some work with my very good friend Steve. This is a very fun project which I will write about when I get back and has the added benefit of allowing me to spend time with Steve and Diana.

How was your weekend?

Wines of the Week in Review

Since last Friday I've had the chance to enjoy a number of good wines. On Friday since I had been out of town for a while I took wife out to a small French (yes LvC - FRENCH) place that allows you to bring your own bottle for a corkage fee. I like this since their wine list is fairly limited and it gives me a chance to use wines out of my cellar. I selected a Beckman 2004 Syrah which comes from the Santa Ynez valley near Santa Barbara, CA.

At a recent Chicago Just Grapes networking event we tried a Grenache from the same wine maker and were underwhelmed. However, this particular wine was kick butt! Wife's comment was, "Well if you would give me this kind of wine every day, I'd be a very happy camper." Here's the good news. We both agreed that this is a wine that is ready now. I have four more bottles. So if you are visiting the de-I household anytime soon, feel free to make a request.

On the Fourth we had dinner at our friends Wild Bill and Jill. Bill is recovering nicely from his injury. I in fact took him out for a short hike in the morning. We were eating a light summer meal of fajitas and drank two wines. The first was a rose from a small winery in Salinas, CA (Monterey County) that I've visited a number of times, Marilyn Remark. It's a rose on the heavier side made from grenache and syrah. It's a little light in acid but makes for a great wine to drink by itself as an aperitif. With dinner Bill brought out a Beaujolais, a Cote de Brouilly, one of the 12 designated areas of the Beaujolais region. I've drinking quite a bit of Beaujolais this summer but this one was quite distinct, very acidic, light, almost like a rose and it went very well with spiciness of the food.

Hope everyone else had a nice Fourth and has ate and drank well.

Gaining an Understanding of AinA's Paranoia

My fellow blogistadors turned me on to the the ancillary sites that you can use to track the data about who is actually visiting your blog. Doing this type of tracking is an interesting exercise in egoism. Obviously anyone who would go to the trouble of posting on a blog for any length of time has hidden writer syndrome. Ergo the more people that visit your blog the better.

However, these tracking programs do much more than just show you how often people come. It gives you data on if the hits are just spiders or search engines, how long people are on the site, how many pages they look at, etc. And you get the geographic location and frequency of visits by location.

This is a very interesting set of data. A quick perusal and you can see all the people you know visit on a regular basis....And you can can find the person who has visited many times from Mumbai, India. Mumbai? I don't know anyone in Mumbai. Who would want to visit my blog from Mumbai?

Welcome to the new world of de-I paranoia.

Is There a Doctor in the House

Paging Dr. Podolny. Paging Dr. Podolny.

Yes there is a Dr. Podolny.

No, de-I was not given an honorary Ph.D in applied technology for learning how to pause and restart music on my i-pod this week (though I should have!)

No, we are talking about my brother, Richard, or as we are now required to call him Doctor. Richard received his MD on Sunday in Honolulu from the University of Hawaii School of Medicine.

My brother was kind of like the Pulisha of our family when he was growing up. He got a degree in engineering and promptly walked out of his new job with Pratt and Whitney Aircraft before even going a year in the job. Then it was on to being a Rolfer and then a burnt out Rolfer. He had a life changing experience with a friend who lost a child because they wouldn't use traditional medicine as well as alternative medicine. At this point his desire to become a complete healer was kindled.

He set out to pursue a career in medicine. The only problem was that he was in his late forties already. In spite of this he persevered and made it through to the end. Now he is a newly minted MD at the ripe age of 57. I've joked with him he was going to get his degree and apply for retirement the same week.

My hat's off to you Richard. I can't even imagine how you managed the studying, the tests, and the endless hours. I hope the next phase gives you the rewards you have hoped for.