So our water heater decided not to die, but to continue producing hot water per normal while quietly leaking for an unknown length of time so that we wouldn’t notice anything until the heat stopped working, by which time all the water had done some unknown amount of damage to the subfloor and the downstairs heat crapped out entirely. I only discovered it because the plumber didn’t fix the heat, so I went down into…
Category: Wine
Christine had a girls night out tonight, but it started a little late, and outside it’s Witchtit, Wyoming cold, so I made a little extra food figuring that she would need an appetizer prior to going out. I had some fantastic ingredients to work with; yesterday I stopped off at my new source for ultra-fresh premium seafood and received around 10 pounds of various goodies, including a whole turbot skeleton and many fillets of cod,…
On Saturday, we met briefly with Gerard and Alison so they could give me a belated birthday gift since they were too sick to come to the party. So, like secret agents, we met in the AutoZone parking lot and they handed me a bag with a side of wild Alaskan salmon in it. The cloak-and-dagger locale was especially appropriate because he works at the CIA. (The food one, not the one with real spies.)…
So for my actual birthday, much less fanfare. I did benefit though from both a little planning ahead and from the high-quality leftovers already lurking in the fridge. Mid-afternoon I came in from cleaning the studio and floured and seared some short ribs, then removed them and added a bag of our frozen magic mirepoix plus some garlic to caramelize in the fat. After that, the remnants of some weird sour BC cabernet that John…
Taking a break from the rich decadence of the weekend, and of recent meals, I dug deep (literally) into the garden to make something much more veg-o-centric. With two of the smoked chicken carcasses I made a simple broth, then picked all the meat off of them and strained the liquid back into the pot. Milo ate all the “broth carrots” and drank two bowls of broth as an appetizer. He then helped me add…
We had a bunch of people over last night to celebrate my 40th birthday; the actual day is Tuesday, but Saturdays are more conducive to parties. In keeping with the dinner party traditions of our crew, we made it a pot luck, but I took care of all the main things. Everyone loves my smoked chickens, so I made six of them, plus polenta, and pressure-cooked cabbage with peppercorns, juniper berries, fenugreek, cumin, and caraway…
The show is not up, but the hard part (painting the wall piece, building the frames for and framing the drawings) is done. I don’t love hanging shows on the day of the opening, but that is often the way it works out happening. I missed out on the big town Halloween event, but it was worth it, and I ended up making dinner too- two whole days earlier than I thought would be possible.…
We went to Vermont for one night, which wasn’t enough, but will have to do for the time being. Driving up we got to experience the steepening gradient from still-luminescent foliage in our area to the more austere landscape that latitude and altitude combine to bestow upon the Green Mountains at this time of year. The bases of most mountains still had some color, but it faded up to the browns, greys, and dark greens…
Christine finally caught The Cold, so Milo and I let her sleep and went apple picking. It was another perfect, crystalline Fall day where the impending doom of Winter sharpens our appreciation of the bounty that still surrounds us- and makes us load a metric ton of fruit into the back of the car. And then we get home and realize that we have to do something, sharpish, with said fruit or it will rot,…