Impromptu and Planned

Agent W was off on some secret mission to the Pacific Northwest so Wife and I decided that he needed some home cooking (not to mention that I still feel guilty over the shed incident)

I cooked too dishes - one that I improvised and one that is a classic dish.

Improv - Fresh Salmon Cakes.

Start with some fresh salmon. Chop it into pieces then put in a chopping bowl. I sauteed some onions with garlic, New Mexico red chile powder, and Mexican oregano and added it to the salmon then chopped further with a chopping blade

I added eggs then used the mixture to fry some patties



I served it over some leaf lettuce with a little red chile spiked vinaigrette.


Next I served a classic from Italian cuisine, Spaghetti Carbonara

Now for all you who way you can't cook, this is an incredible dish with fantastic flavor that is simplicity itself to make.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound spaghetti
• 1/2 cup of bacon (or pancetta - Italian salted bacon) cut into small batons about a half inch long
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 3/4 of a cup Parmesan cheese - finely grated (use fresh not pre-grated if you can)
• 3 eggs at room temperature

Directions:

1. Boil a lot of water for spaghetti
2. Saute the bacon in the olive oil. When they are crisp take the pan off the heat.
3. Get a large bowl and put some boiling water in it to get it warm
4. Cook the spaghetti per instructions on package
5. While pasta is cooking, pour water out of the bowl and dry it
6. Break eggs into the bowl, put in the cheese and mix well
7. When pasta is done, dump into strainer and quickly put into bowl with egg cheese mixture
8. Add bacon oil mixture
9. Salt and pepper to tast and mix thoroughly

The heat from the spaghetti cooks the eggs, melts the cheese and creates this wonderful sauce with the great bacon bits.

Pasta cooking and Bacon frying

Eggs mixed with Cheese

Finished Pasta

Oh ya...We had some wine too

Miracle at the Towers

We know that we have been blessed to have the opportunity to fulfill a dream of ours by having completed our recent home remodel. This was brought home to us by a miraculous event which took place while having Gaius Derf over for dinner. The eagle eyed Derf noticed something on the counter after we were done eating.

On closer inspection we saw that a drop of wine that had formed the shape of heart.

As a born again Aztec, I was immediately taken. This was a symbol. An omen. Action was required. Clearly a sacrifice was called for. Clearly Derf was the only candidate. However, since he had a vague idea of Aztec ritual, he made an escape using the excuse of taking out the trash.

As a result we settled for a simple devotional offering

Tidbits

I can't say that there has been tons of eventful stuff going around to write about so here is a some miscellaneous odds and ends

The New Roll

This week marks the end of the roll of Costco, Kirkland brand plastic wrap. Neither Wife nor I can remember when we bought. It seemed that it lasted over two years. So this time I decided to actually put the date when we started the new roll so we can actually calculate its lifespan.
Garden Blooming

I say many, many, many thank yous that I have a wife who 1) likes to garden and 2) is from Minnesota farm stock and will work like a maniac. Therefore, it is my duty to publicize ad nauseum her accomplishments. Hence the the pictures of blooming flowers galore taken from the soaring heights of the tower. Please especially note the hollyhocks and the brand new roses.




Hike Till You Drop

Wild Bill was my hiking buddy of choice today. We had arranged to take a long but leisurely hike with us dropping off one car at our destination so we could do a transverse rather than an up and back. WB arrives at 7:15 and tells me that he has to be back by Noon because he has a function that he forgot about. He was going to call me last night to tell me but decided not to. So we have to adjust. I still want to do a longer hike and I opt for an up and back on part of what we were going to do, the Three Gun Spring trail. I've written about this in the past. It can be very demanding. Especially if you are hearing WB's wife in your head threatening you if you don't get him back on time. So we haul assed and did the 4 mile 2100 foot climb in an hour and 45 minutes...an hour and half on the way back. I was totally wiped out. But at least I know I'm ready to do some of the more ambitious hikes we've talked about for this summer.

Sierra Nevada Eating

One never visits Lady Di without eating extremely well. We were wined and dined the whole time we were there. On our last night, they recommended going to a restaurant, Moody's Bistro, that is noted for its own made cured meat products (charcutrie). They also had a really good wine list.

While there were tons of California wines as one would expect, that's not where my knowledge lies. I know that Steve and Diana love champagne so I started with a bottle of that.Then my eye fell on a real find, a 1993 Chateauneuf du Pape at what I thought was a very reasonable price. It's hard to find wines with that kind of age in restaurants at a price that I would even think of paying. It was really nice with the fruit still there even after 16 years.
One of the dishes up front was a very nice beet salad.
And of course there was the fabulous selection of house made cured sausage, pates and rilletes.
Steve had a pork scallopine and I had short ribs and we were both very happy with our dishes. The ladies had a halibut dish that bluntly was way over cooked. I asked that they bring out another and it was still too well done. So we were a bit frustrated. But our waiter, who was very well schooled, brought out for us a free dessert (rasberry tart) and gave everyone a nice glass of house made limoncello (awesomely good) which smoothed over any bad feelings. Very classily done.

Sierra Nevada Idle - Part 2

There are all kinds of hiking opportunities in the area where we are staying. I've been on two the last two days. On Sunday, Wife, Lady Di, daughter Anne, and I took a 5 mile, picture taking hike for the the two photographers Wife and Anne. Today, Lady Di and I took a 10 mile, working hard, hike. Lady Di and I are both of the - hiking should be a challenge - persuasion. So today we said not dilly dallying for taking pictures even though the scenery was fantastic. However, I did catch plenty shots of the photographers.

The goal of the hike was to searching for wild flowers.

On our way through the forest

Photographers getting out their gear and getting ready for action

Field of yellow wild flowers

Beware the ferocious Sierra Nevada Pink Snake

Mountain meadow

At least one photo from moi of wild flowers

Wife, Anne, and Lady Di

Even a picture of de-I!

Sierra Nevada Idle

We're off for a long weekend in the Sierra Nevada mountains near Lake Tahoe with our very dear friends Steve and Diana. They have a fractional ownership place up near Truckee, CA which is about 30 minutes west of Reno and about 10 miles from Lake Tahoe. Here are some pictures of the 'cabin'.

Looking out the Great Room toward the golf course and the hot tub

The great room

This is the second floor landing just above the previous picture

S and D along with ourselves are serious foodies and Lady Di is an incredibly talented and well organized cook. She does large scale events I would not event even dream of doing.

However even the indomitable Lady Di can only do so much when the torch is out of butane :(
(It tasted great nonetheless)

LAKE CRUISE ON LAKE TAHOE

The day after our arrival we took a cruise on the lake, a favorite activity of Wife and I.

The rather hokey looking cruise boat
The Captain/Guide actually was filled with a lot of good information though and the food on board was shockingly good.

The water of Lake Tahoe is shockingly blue.
(because of something called thermal filtration which I will not bore you with)

The Sierra Nevadas surrounding the lake

If you blow up this picture you may be able to see that there is a small stone house on top of this island.
This was the 'tea house' a wealthy woman built for herself at the end of the last century. Her main house is across from the island on the shore.

WINE TASTING

Also with us are S and D's daughter Anne and her fiance Aaron. They are marrying in September so we did a wine tasting to determine the wines they want to serve at the wedding.

Takin' A Break

Wife and I are heading out tomorrow for a short trip to Lake Tahoe where our friends Steve and Lady Di have a timeshare. We haven't seen them in over a year and we always have a great time. We've heard that Di has been planning her menu for weeks. She also emailed me that she is planning a 'survivor' level hike. This is a good thing?

On other notes our weather has been a bit weird this spring. Normally at this time of year it is very, very dry and hot. But it has been cool with afternoon showers - almost like when the monsoon hits.

My new grill is taking a lot of getting used to including using the charcoal chimney to get things started. But in general I'm please with the results.

Yesterday was a demonstration to me that I still have a long way to go in my spiritual development. I've been working on this very difficult work out of a native american owned company. Short story is years and years of mismanagement with the Tribal Council having refused numerous times to face the facts of the problems. The current Board of Directors - three of us - were basically sold a bill of goods and not given all the information we should have about how bad things were. The economic crisis this fall and winter was the last straw. We started in January telling the Council the company was insolvent. This has now dragged on for almost 5 months. We managed to find a way to bailout the Pueblo by leasing out most of our assets. But there are a couple of people on the council who were ex-employees who essentially were interested in getting revenge by totally disrupting anything we recommended. So we had the meeting hoping to get approval. Instead we endured 3 hours of people essentially telling us we were incompetent, that we were self-dealing, that we didn't have the Pueblo's interest at heart. Now understand, we were offering a way to bail out a company that has lost millions over the last three years and give them $3 million of positive cash flow, keep employment, and without them having to fund it. I kept my mouth shut for most of the 3 hours but finally just tore into our prime torementor. I shouldn't have let him get to me. It certainly didn't do any good.

Net result by the way? They turned down our proposal and have decided to shut down the company with a probable $4 million capital infusion necessary to clean everything up. Go figure.