you win some, you lose some.

Tonight, I had a SUPERB dinner at Fleming's in Mt. Laurel, NJ. There was old scotch, and there was perfectly seared filet mignon and there was a great red wine. The weird little appetizer of Champagne-infused Brie was surprising, rich, and quite probably is the new love of my life. Except that I'm married. However, if you could marry food, Rose would totally have to armwrestle the Brie for my affections. It's just that good. So that is a win.

Also in the "win" column, and a significantly more important win, is the fact that my niece is out of the hospital. [here is where you must imagine me doing a giant, happy, rejoicing dance. there will be no live demo.] Seriously, this is better than any cheese ever. We still don't know anything, but she's feeling better, moving better, and is cross with her mama over all the poking, prodding, and testing she's had to go through. Mama was there to hold her, and in the 17-month-old-mind, is the agent at fault for all the discomfort. No fair, really. Keep her in your prayers. We all hope for her continued good health and a diagnosis that is easy for us to swallow. Selfish as it may be to ask that, it's what I want.

On to the losses. Monday, the TSA assaulted my dignity again. This time, it was over my freaking Tide pen. Yes, you know, those little gizmos you use when you spill something on your clothes and then have to go look like a reasonably well-put-together person in order to keep your job? Those things WHICH DO NOT CONTAIN BLEACH AT ALL or else you couldn't use them on colored fabrics? Yeah, the TSA lady pulled it out of my 1 quart zip-top bag and concluded that because it said "Tide" on it it must contain bleach and was therefore a threat to national security. Almost every word of labeling had been rubbed off the damn thing by its ongoing contact with said zip-top bag in my thousands of miles of air travel. It wasn't worth arguing over the single item. I wonder, though, if the PRINCIPLE isn't worth arguing over. Whatever I conclude on that score, I'm pretty sure that arguing with one liquids inspector at the DFW airport is not going to significantly impact the policy. And that's what I really want to argue with... not the policy IMPLEMENTERS, but the policy MAKERS.

mission drift...

for those of you who observe easter: Happy Easter! He is Risen!

now, onto the topic at hand: mission drift

yesterday rose and i went off to help out at my sister's house. they recently replaced their carpet with wood flooring in deference to their highly allergic and now crawling youngest daughter. since the floor went in, their garage has been storage/workshop space. we went, ostensibly to help replace baseboards, but because the garage space had to be reclaimed first, we ended up minding the babies while my brother-in-law hauled trash and returned unused floor bits, etc. we left just as b-i-l's mom came over to dye easter eggs with the kids. (a narrow escape! i liked the clothes i was wearing!)

on our way home, we received a TOP SEEKRIT COMMUNIQUÉ from our commanding general, i.e.: the lady who had invited us over for dinner. our mission was to procure a cheesecake for the consumption and delight of the troops -- under cover of broad daylight. not just any cheesecake would satisfy the general, however. this particular cheesecake had to be unfrozen and ready in the next 15 minutes. after consulting all relevant sources of clandestine intelligence, namely rose's sister and her encyclopedic knowledge of all things procurement-related, we agreed upon a mission plan. we would approach the nearest greengrocer's establishment and attempt to procure a cheesecake in full view of everyone, without even the most rudimentary groucho-marx-style disguise. obviously, it is always best to procure cheesecake components, bivouac in the vicinity of an enclosed heating device and construct it yourself, but the 15-minute constraint prevented this course of action.

when we arrived at the greengrocer's, our driver and our gunner engaged in an evasive maneuver designed to sow confusion and doubt in the minds of the enemy, and to accommodate the gunner's busted leg. (the gunner busted her leg in utah on another mission and is in intensive therapy to recover the use of it before bike weather descends fully upon us). the gunner bravely took over the driver's post while the driver penetrated the perimeter at the greengrocer's in order to recon the location of the cheesecake and attempt to procure it. she had ALMOST made it safely inside when she was accosted by a member of a youth paramilitary organization, an all-volunteer brigade of the fiercest young women American society has to offer. these young women are known collectively as "The Girl Scouts", although intelligence indicates that they break themselves into age-based brigades of "Brownies", "Juniors" and "Cadets". the young scout was, according to the driver's debriefing report, likely a "Brownie". the youthful scout spotted our driver quite easily, assailing her directly but from behind the safety of a paperboard shield which bore her troop insignia and a piece of propaganda about cookies. the driver deflected the attack and kept moving, putting off the assault with a clever line about "buy[ing] some on my way out."

safely inside the perimeter, in the very heart of the greengrocer's base, the driver attempted to ferret out the location of the cheesecake. along the way, in order to maintain camouflage, she was forced to pick up some sugar-covered marshmallows in the shape of a rabbit. the locals use these items to celebrate the annual spring holiday of 'Easter' and refer to the candies simply as "Peeps". intel cannot uncover the reason for naming rabbit candies after bird sounds, and recommend further investigation into these so-called "Peeps". shortly after being forced to grab some "Peeps" for camouflage, the driver spied a bottle of very expensive wine on a very good sale price, and realized it would make an ideal club weapon in case she found herself further accosted by more of the paramilitary youth scouts. failing that, she could drink the wine later and realizing the value-added proposition this presented to her troop morale, she gathered the wine up and proceeded to her mission objective.

at last, when freed of the crowds of locals bearing "Peeps" and "Cadbury Eggs", the driver spied the bakery sign and made straight for it. there, in an unguarded case, she found three cheesecakes from which to choose. selecting the most lovely of the three for presentation to the general, the driver proceeded to the scanning devices en route to the exit. the driver found, with no small measure of luck, an unmanned station and was able to clear her purchases without being spied or noticed unduly by enemy forces. she began to make her exit out a door other than the one by which she entered, so as to avoid the "Brownie" troops. unfortunately, the "Brownie" had anticipated this course of action and had positioned reinforcements at the exit door. the driver considered using her improvised club, but these scouts had a large armored chest with them which was likely their weapons locker. they also had an assault vehicle parked nearby with trained drivers inside. feeling her chances of making a quick assault and good escape were nil at this point, the driver succumbed to the crowd of "Brownies", and emerged a few minutes later with only a slightly thinned wallet and a few boxes of Thin Mints and Samoas weighing down her step.

The ultimate lesson here: Mission Drift is a terrible thing. "Peeps", good wine, and Girl Scout Cookies are the price you pay for failing to stick to the core cheesecake procurement directive. Don't let this happen to you!

writer's block

lately i'm suffering a bit of writer's block. i simply don't have anything to say. i've tried to fight through it with a couple of half-assed memes, but that's not really working. so today, i'm going to tell you about the outstanding dinner i made for rose's birthday last night. alas, i'm not nerdy enough to have taken photos, so you'll have to imagine what it looked like.

the main course was buffalo steak in a tart cherry sauce; the sides were butternut squash and wilted spinach with caramelized onion. the cherry sauce was a huge experiment, and i'm pleased to say that all reporters either enjoyed it or lied convincingly. it was the first time in a very long time that i cooked without tasting the dish all through the process, so even i was pleasantly surprised. however, we did start all three dishes with the 2 crucial steps of melting 2 tbsp butter and pouring 2 oz wine into the cook, so it was hard to go wrong from there.

i sent rose to the store for all the odd ingredients that i don't keep in my kitchen, like sun-dried oregon cherries. i have maraschino cherries, but those aren't quite the same and could never be classed as 'tart'. unless maybe they were in a beverage called a 'tart' because of its umm... effect on chicks who drink fruity things with cherries in them and umbrellas on top. rose had to call me three or four times from the store for direction and substitution options because Whole Foods doesn't prominently display plum wine or sun-dried cherries. as a result, we ended up with some Organic Tibetan Goji Berries, which i thought was a hoot. according to wiki, the "tibetan" part is probably a big fat lie marketing strategy because the tibetan plateau is remarkably unsuitable for commercial fruit production, even if it were organic production. the goji berries were very close to the cherries, and were quite prominently displayed, according to rose. for those who wonder, they are quite tasty little boogers, kinda like a dried cranberry, but with just a hint of savory about them and not so fruity-sweet. think of an early strawberry that's ripe enough to be red, but not ripe enough to be particularly sweet yet.

the squash was tasty and uber-simple. i halved it and scraped out the seeds and pulp (which are remarkably pumpkin-like) and then scored the flesh deeply with a knife. i smeared it with butter, dropped a tablespoon of extra butter into the hollow, sprinkled it liberally with nutmeg, covered each half with foil and set it foil side down on a cookie sheet to bake at 350 for an hour. yum! i love me some winter squash. rose had never eaten it before, so she now has a new seasonal food addiction. plus, it's a nice carrot-free source of beta carotene. have any of you noticed how grocery store carrots taste these days? they pretty much taste like dirt. bleh.

for the spinach, i minced some garlic and slivered some onion into about 2 tbsp of olive oil in my honkin' weapons-grade cast iron skillet. then i tossed in a bag of baby spinach until the whole mass was about halved in size. i pulled it off the fire and put it into a bowl where i drizzled it with balsamic vinegar and LOTS of lemon juice. probably about the juice of half a lemon, if i were one of those nutty cooks-from-scratch types. but i'm not, so the juice came out of those darling plastic lemon-shaped bottles with the long pour spout. i guess that's there just so you don't inadvertently grab the unnaturally shiny yellow bottle thinking it's an actual lemon. as far as i can tell, the spout serves only to make it look like a lemon with a strange protuberance that might be a tumor...

the buffalo steaks were marinated in equal parts balsamic vinegar and worcestershire sauce, with a generous addition of lemon juice, black pepper, pickled ginger, and bavarian herb mix. for the cherry sauce, i used 1/2 a medium sized sweet onion, sauteed in butter, about a cup of apple juice, cup of cranberry juice, 3 tbsp sweet red wine (i used a beaujolais nouveau because we couldn't find plum), a cup of dried cherries, and a half cup of Genuine Organic Tibetan Goji Berries. then i made a sachet out of cheesecloth and into it i put a bay leaf, 4 black peppercorns, 3 whole cloves, 1 clove garlic and all the pickled ginger i could fish out of the marinade. i simmered the whole lot for about 20 or 30 minutes. i removed about 1/2 cup of the cherries from the sauce and set them aside. i pulled out the sachet, as well. then i put the sauce into a blender and made it smooth. i topped each steak with the sauce and a few of the whole cherries.

nom nom nom!

rose was in charge of cooking the meat, which i assume she did on the grill outside. she ran off with the marinating dish when i told her she had about 10 minutes left, and when she came back, there was a plate of medium-rare buffalo steaks in her hand. it is good to have a sous chef, no?

happy birthday, love!

yosemite!!!

rose and i left out of napa and rolled on down the road toward yosemite national park. yosemite, of course, was not part of The Plan (TM, Pat Pend) so we didn't have any hotels (let alone any towns) scouted out as landing zones. we drifted into Jamestown, CA courtesy of a AAA road map and a gracious good wind. we pulled up to the first hotel in town, a cute old B&B on main street with a wooden sign hanging from the balcony. it was locked. there was a guy standing outside jiggling the front door handle. he'd forgotten his key and was locked out. we figured if a registered guest couldn't get in there, we sure couldn't. so we rolled on down the street to the next place. it, likewise, was a cute old B&B. they had exactly one room open, so we took it. what a good decision that turned out to be! the National Hotel was precious, right down to the teddy bears waiting to snuggle with us in our twin beds. the water-closet style bathroom, shown here, was actually pretty recently updated. they also had the text from an original sign posted in the guest rooms, just after it was built at the end of the gold rush as a hotel for miners.
the hotel was built in 1849, and has been in continuous operation since then. the bar and barroom are made of hand-carved redwood. it was both simple and gorgeous, and i regret that i didn't get a photo of the glass chain decorating the mirror behind the bar. i've never seen anything like it. the hotel has apparently been through 2 devastating fires, but the bar has been saved every time! i guess the miners knew a good thing when they saw it. we had the most amazing 4-star dinner of our entire vacation in the cafe out back, shaded by a canopy of grapevines that have obviously been trained patiently over the long years. some of the parent vines were as big around as my calf. (!!!)


the next morning, we actually rolled into yosemite. it was just as pretty as everyone said. i now understand why ansel adams spent so much time taking photos in the park. the contrasts there are sharp enough to cut yourself on... mosses so green they're almost black, rocks so white you have to look twice to figure out if they're snow or rocks, beautiful groves of ancient trees, shattered fields where fires raged, impatient minivan drivers, dawdling rv drivers. around every single bend in the road there was something we wanted to stop and photograph. if we had taken all the pictures we wanted, we'd still be there.alas and alack, we had to hit the road. we couldn't stop indefinitely in yosemite to take pictures. in fact, we didn't even stop for lunch! we ate at a little gas station/cafe/souvenir shop on the far side of the park on the edge of Mono Lake. from there, we headed off into the wilds of nevada on US Hwy 6. we were still off the route that was part of The Plan (TM, Pat Pend) but if we made decent time across nevada, we would be on track when 6 intersected 50 in Ely. So we bid California a fond adieu, and rolled east for Nevada. in closing, this is just about the only picture i took that came out nicely. all the above shots? yup, you guessed it. my girlfriend's work.

Update

Gosh, I'm behind on the blog. So, the people that called and asked how I wanted my name spelled in my e-mail did make a formal offer. So, I've got a new job. Last week was my last on the old job and I did the transition with the new guy and everything. The nice thing about leaving is that I don't really like the new guy. This is unusual for me, because I get on well and easily with almost everybody I've ever met. He seems to be trying too hard, though, and he aggravates me. So, between the new guy and the fact that I was bored off my bum in the old position, I'm really keen on starting the new one.

The new job starts next week, so I'm off for this one. So I spent the weekend visiting my godsons, which was awesome. I love those boys. The baby is starting to talk, and he is terribly amusing. He calls Molly by name, such as his pronunciation is, but their two family dogs he simply calls "dog". He's a little unclear on the concept of "fetch" and when he throws the ball to Molly, he chases after her declaring loudly: RUN!!! As she gets to the ball and turns around and runs past him, he giggles and follows, again crying: RUN!!! He lets you know you need to catch him by declaring "JUMP" just before he launches himself into the air from wherever he's perched. The middle one is a stereotypical redhead. He's a total kamikaze, and loves nothing more than to be picked up and thrown around the room. I was bummed to have had back trouble the whole preceding week, because it made it difficult for me to swing him around. Regardless, we managed to have fun. He loves to play imagination-games, and I usually end up sitting still and asking a few questions to move things along while he spins an entire world of fantasy around me. The oldest is almost as big a geek as I am. I love it! He's planning to be George Washington for Halloween. How cool is that?!?! I sat and watched him play video games and he explained to me how to kill Geonosians (the insect-like bad guys from Star Wars, Episode II: Attack Of The Clones) and the finer points of earning merit badges in the Veggie Tales Cub Sprouts game. It was an enlightening weekend!

Then I went to see my baby sister in Austin and we assembled the furniture she'd bought at Ikea. That was fun, and we only made two mistakes. Once, we put a drawer-slide on the wrong supporting leg, but that was easy to fix. The other mistake was going from the wrong direction with screws that fixed the drawer to the rails, so the drawer wouldn't close. She figured out how to pull the screws out while I fussed with the keyboard tray and we got it all sorted out. We ended up having to perform some percussive adjustments (with a hammer) to other parts of the thing to get it all put together right, but we did it. Nothing broke, and it all worked. Of course, I've received reports that there was a good deal of percussive adjustment required in the assembly of the bench that went along with the desk. I hope it holds together when she tries to sit on it!

We wound up the night at Poodie's Hilltop Bar and Grill in Spicewood, TX watching game 4 of the NBA finals. Wow, was that a nail-biter, or what?!?! As my friend said, the officiating was total crap. We were accosted by a very drunk cowboy who was either a Bull Rider, Retired Bull Rider or Rodeo Clown and was somewhere between 32 and 52 years old. He introduced himself variously as all of those things at one point or another in that conversation. He managed to dance once or twice with my sister before he was thrown out of the bar, and we came to the conclusion that one should NEVER miss the opportunity to be ugly to a drunk rodeo clown. We also met some zany Hawaiians who also had a house there in Spicewood. Anyone who has a Humuhumunukunukuapua'a tattooed on their butt is probably good people. However, if they'll hike up their shorts and show it to you in a bar, you should probably question their sobriety. The really funny part of that encounter was that the husband of the tattooed woman decided that he had my sister and I figured out, based on the 15 minutes he'd spent talking to us. He declared that my baby sister was obviously the Smart One, and Good With Numbers; I was the Crazy One. We played along with him for the moment and giggled to each other for the rest of the night. If anyone with a modicum of knowlege about my sisters and I were ever asked to classify us, I can absolutely guarantee that I'd be "The Smart One" and my baby sister would be "The Crazy One". The middle sister would probably be either "The Tough One" or "The Sensible One". She's damn amazing, and I'd call her "The Pretty One" but I might offend the baby sister if I did that. Can't wait to see which of them I get comments from first after that. :)

So, the weekend past, I made my way down to my folks' house and hung out with Mom. Dad's working out of town and I probably won't get to see him while I'm down here. Anyway, Mom and I are having a good time. I'm blogging from her laptop right now, drinking red wine and watching Comedy Central. This is kinda like carbs for the Atkins-dieter in my head. I've been cable-free for so long that watching it is both a huge rush and a bit shameful.

Well, I've got the rest of the week and weekend tightly planned. Hopefully, I'll get to blog about it more sometime soon. Until then, I'm off to have more of the wine and the cable. Hopefully I don't sink into a sugar coma.