Barely sane....

Gray is the New White?

2012-02-14T10:07:00.000-08:00

Each week I get this great email from a local real estate agent (who used to be Joey's guitar teacher) highlighting Portland properties for sale. The links in the email take you directly to the real estate multiple listing for that property. Most of the listings include lots of great pictures. One of the houses in today's email has this gorgeous kitchen with gray cabinets. I have been noticing lately (on Pinterest, of course) that gray cabinets are really hot right now. If I didn't love my kitchen, I think I would get me some of those gray cabinets. Here are some of my favorite gray kitchens:

Love the open shelving and white countertop, I would do white marble :)

and I would totally have pink flowers on the counter all the time, because what a lovely color combination: pink & gray!

Love the shaker cabinet style and the hardware

Love the wood countertops

Love the open shelving, chandelier and shiny floors

Love the pot rack with all new-looking pretty, shiny silver pots and the big marble top table and stools

Again, gray and marble. Such a beautiful, clean contemporary feel

and this is the kitchen from the recent real estate listing. Lovely big farm sink. Lovely everything!

Breakfast Project: Day Five

2012-02-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

Breakfast with Sammy

Day Five: "Not Mother's" Eggs Benedict

I have reached the fifth and final day of my Breakfast with Sammy Project.

I have a few general observations:

(1) I want to state that I am extremely proud of both my boys. They do both frustrate me and they also bring me the greatest joy I have ever known. I love them both for who they are as people. The teenage years are tough for all involved, but it is merely one step in a wonderful journey and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

(2) Like most everything else, practice makes perfect when it comes to cooking.

I enjoy the practice.

(3) I very much prefer sunny sunrises to cloudy ones.

(4) Getting up at 6:30am just isn't that bad, especially when I get to spend time with my 18 year old.

(5) Some things I thought were irreplaceable, aren't.

Thursday afternoons the house cleaners arrive. In preparation, I pick up everything in the house that is not in its place and put it away (otherwise who knows where it will end up). I make sure all the dishes are done, beds are made, etc... The animals are all rounded up and herded into my office. The cleaners clean the bathrooms, kitchen, floors, dust the furniture, vacuum, etc... I wish they wiped down the walls, but they don't. I thought when the boys got older, things like dirty fingerprints would be a thing of the past. They aren't. It seems the smudges are just higher up on the wall, and bigger.

Yesterday, while I was working away in my office surrounded by my three furry babies, I heard a large crash and then the sound of something (or somethings) shattering. Oh how I hate that sound. It seems one of the cleaners backed into a plate rack I have hanging in the dining room. She dislodged the rack (even though it is installed with a screw), it crashed to the floor, and my two 1920's German Majolica Bird Relief plates, that I adore, shattered into many, many pieces. This is not the first time my things have been broken (actually, Michael breaks things all the time). The cleaners have broken drinking glasses, a bowl, and even a light fixture. That was crazy, apparently while they were dusting it, the whole thing just fell out of the ceiling and crashed to the ground? When I saw the plates, I was heartbroken. Even though I don't speak Spanish, I know what the house cleaner was trying to say, and I felt bad for her. I could tell she was offering to replace the plates. I told her it was okay and went back to my office.

I loved those plates so much, that I often took pictures of them. For example, Tuesday morning, a picture of one of the plates appeared in my blog. Here's another picture taken that morning:

Thank goodness for the internet. After a brief period of mourning, I decided to see if more plates were out there somewhere. I am happy to say, I found them at an online antique store. Two "like new" plates are on their way to me. I am a happy camper.

Now, on to breakfast!

I love Eggs Benedict. I didn't used to love it, but sometime in my 20's I had an epiphany regarding Eggs Benedict. My favorite of all favorite Eggs Benedict is served at Mother's Bistro in downtown Portland. My Eggs Benedict today was NOT as good as MOTHER'S, I will admit that, but it was pretty good

We have made Eggs Benedict at our house before. Once, I made Eggs Benedict with Crab and Avocado. YUM!

Today, I went traditional. When I was preparing Sammy's, the Hollandaise curdled some and I didn't have the time to fix it. Once Sammy left (and I am left with the options of cleaning up my breakfast mess or starting work at 7:30am), I set to making that Hollandaise as smooth as silk.

Even though I know how to make Hollandaise, I feel I cannot really do it justice without having Julia's book in front of me.

and then trying to get the sauce smooth again, I had to glance at her hints, just to make sure I was doing it right

We also had some delicious, sweet and juicy cantaloupe

I had a half portion of Eggs Benedict because I really should not be eating it at all and I also have an early lunch date with a good friend. Looking at these pictures, I am already hungry.

I made it through and I enjoyed it.

Next week, our breakfasts will be dedicated to healthy choices :).

Breakfast Project: Day Four

2012-02-09T13:17:00.000-08:00

Breakfast with Sammy

Day Four: "Mauna Kea"

Mastering the Waffle

After my frustrating waffle experience yesterday morning, I decided I needed non-stick cooking spray and a better recipe. Unfortunately, I also believe we need a new waffle iron.

I pulled together the ingredients for a recipe I found on the internet and subsequently pinned to a recipe board on Pinterest: Cornstarch Waffles. The recipe doesn't sound all that appetizing, but it worked okay.

Above: the cast of characters

I decided to make a raspberry syrup for our waffles. I started with fresh raspberries, a little sugar, a little maple syrup and water. What started out looking like this

ended up looking like this

I used the left over bacon from yesterday.

I whipped up some cream.

and here is the finished product

The reason for the name: "Mauna Kea" is not that we were so full that when we finished we thought we would explode like the volcano on the big island of Hawaii (although I did think about that), but in fact, because this is my favorite breakfast to order when we stay at the Mauna Kea Hotel on the Kohala Coast. We order room service delivered to the balcony.

When I got up this morning to this

what I really wanted to see was this

Enter the "Mauna Kea" breakfast

and I always order a pot of hot chocolate at The Mauna Kea, so...

I made some.

Sammy is still sick, but he had a science presentation today so he headed off to school, early.

Although it may sound like bad parenting, I am glad he was able to make it to school today.

Breakfast Project: Day Three

2012-02-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

Breakfast with Sammy

Day Three: "Grandma Elsie's Scrambled Eggs"

(plus Belgian Waffle FAIL)

Today's breakfast was supposed to include Belgian waffles, "fresh" berries, and bacon. I realize now why I do not like making waffles. I am horrible at it. A complete failure. I know we have made waffles before, a long time ago, but I am not sure if they were Belgian waffles. Anyway, I started the morning attempting this:

but instead, I got this:

And now I remember another reason I don't like making waffles: I very much dislike cleaning waffle irons (even when they don't look like this!) I used an Emeril recipe and I have never had a failed Emeril recipe. Hmm. Perhaps it is actually our old waffle iron ;). Perhaps not. I should have read the recipe the night before. I did not have any non-stick spray. I wiped the thing down with oil first. Ugh! I will get the non-stick spray and then I will master the waffle. I will, because I am stubborn that way.

The local nitrate and hormone free bacon was already baking in the oven at 425 degrees, so all was not lost. I threw a 10-grain English muffin in the toaster and started on some of Grandma Elsie's scrambled eggs. I'm not sure if others are as picky as we are around here with our scrambled eggs. I am picky and Michael is picky. Michael likes his eggs scrambled so well, that to me, they do not even resemble scrambled eggs anymore, scrambled with salami, even better. Me, I really only like my scrambled eggs like my Grandma Elsie (my Mom's Mom) used to make them. It is so easy, but you have to cook them slow and keep an eye on them. I start with butter in a small frying pan on low heat. I then crack the eggs directly into the pan and let them cook until the whites are just starting to set then I break the yolks. I do not mix the eggs around, I let them cook a little this way, the yolks are clearly separated from the whites. I add a little salt and pepper and I cook them slow, mixing them a little, not a lot, just until the eggs are not liquid. I immediately get them off the heat. They taste so rich cooked this way.

Our final breakfast meal included Grandma Elsie's scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and an english muffin topped with homemade strawberry jam (from our berries).

The reason I was so enamored with our sunrise view the past couple days is because this is the kitchen view we normally get on a winter morning (well, and all day in the winter for that matter):

and then, a little reminder of the view we had the past few days:

Even though we did not have those intense rays of sunshine beating down on use, this pretty china teacup that Grandma Elsie gave me before she passed away, was a lovely addition to the breakfast table.

After Sammy left (on time), I savored a cup of English Breakfast tea, without a thought to the waffle fiasco mess I still had to clean up.

and it was a mighty wonderful cup of tea.

Heading upstairs to start work, I was greeted by Miss Chloe. She's a very pretty girl.

Everything is starting to look pretty. Perhaps this early morning routine is growing on me?

Even though Sammy got off to school on time, he was sent home by his first period (Japanese) teacher for being too sick to remain at school. Maybe I should have fed him chicken noodle soup for breakfast.

Breakfast Project: Day Two

2012-02-07T14:47:00.000-08:00

Breakfast with Sammy

Day Two: "Andy McMuffin Redux"

(a.k.a. Homemade Burgerville English Muffin Sandwich with Sausage)

To begin, here is an explanation of the crazy name I have chosen for today's breakfast speciality (pronounced spe-shee-ality). Last weekend I was visiting my youngest Brother, Andy, and his lovely wife, Lindsay, in Salt Lake City. Michael calls him Andrew, but I have no idea who he is talking about. It is similar to when someone calls our house and asks for "Mike." I do not know who they are talking about and I say "no one here by that name." I have NEVER called Michael "Mike" and I have never called Andy "Andrew." As Ellen Degeneres would say, anyway.... moving right along. Andy served us the most delicious home made Egg McMuffin with Ham, Egg and Cheddar. It was great. The eggs were perfectly cooked (runny), the cheese perfectly melted, the muffin perfectly toasted, etc. What a treat. I decided I would make a sausage version of that sandwich for my second breakfast with Sammy.

The reason my breakfast name has an "also known as", is because my favorite fast food place, ever, and I mean ever, is Burgerville. Burgerville is unique to the Pacific Northwest and they are known for delicious fresh, local and sustainable food. When Michael reads this he is going to say, isn't IN-N-OUT really your favorite? The answer is NO. Burgerville is awesome and they have tons of menu items including their english muffin breakfast sandwiches. I very rarely eat a fast food breakfast, but if I had my choice, this is it. I never order it with egg, because even though I believe in Burgerville's food quality, I am afraid of any egg served at a fast food restaurant.

We enjoyed peaches canned in honey, not included in the title but very delicious.

The breakfast sandwich was served on 10 grain english muffins (7g of fiber)

topped with local, organic ground pork sausage patties + Tillamook Cheddar

and a sunny side up egg with plenty of runniness.

It was mighty delicious.

We also had another lovely sunrise experience

which lit up more prettiness

In the above picture is a pretty spoon that came with our house. Our house included a lot of interesting stuff like the dining room table that Chloe is sitting on, grrr--cats!?! I used the above spoon to grab out the peaches without taking all the sweet, peach honey sauce with them. I like to pull out pretty stuff when I have to get up at 6:30am to make breakfast. Pretty stuff makes me happy. Speaking of sweet peach honey sauce, it works great for making your own soda. I put in a little peach honey sauce, a little grenadine, and a lot of soda water. Yummy!

Even though Sammy finished his breakfast 10 minutes early, he ended up leaving the house 10 minutes late. I just do not know what to do with that kid.

Breakfast Project: Day One

2012-02-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

Breakfast with Sammy, Breakfast Project

Day One: "Nana Fern"

I have a confession to make: I am not a morning person. I used to be a morning person... early to bed, early to rise and all that. When Michael and I first started dating, I was fast asleep by 11:30pm. I have always required eight hours of sleep to remain healthy, so whatever the bed time, I got my eight hours. It seems now that I am old, I can no longer get to sleep before 1:00am, sometimes I am up well past 2:00am. This makes getting eight hours of sleep and starting work before 9 or 10am very difficult. Not that you care about my sleep patterns, but I do have a point to all this and I will get to it, eventually. I promise.

A couple years ago I wrote about Joey's "senioritis." There just comes a point when they are ready to be done with high school. Sammy is currently a senior and I would be lying if I said it has not been a very difficult school year thus far. If anyone (anyone: a.k.a. younger siblings) ever wants to talk with someone about how kids, especially teens, will take your parental expectations, throw them on the floor and have a full out tantrum on them before handing them back to you as a mess of broken parental expectations, I am your gal. This is all very metaphoric, of course. Kids can't really stomp on a parent's dreams and expectations, can they? :). I'm here to say, for me personally, this was the toughest lesson to learn. Please don't saddle your kids with unrealistic expectations. Life is hard enough without them. The result is heart breaking for everyone. But I DIGRESS!!! For the purpose of this post, we are going to focus on the difficulty Sammy has had getting to school on time. We have been Sammy's human alarm clocks for a while now. It seems his alarms just never work properly... Michael mostly gets the burden since he requires much less sleep than I do and gets up much earlier than I do. Recently, Michael has also been driving Sammy to and from school. We could say this is part of a grounding situation for Sammy or a family car situation--three people, two cars, but again, not the time or place for that here. This week Michael is in Japan. I decided to give Sammy back some freedom by letting him drive to and from school this week. As far as getting him up in the morning, I have committed to getting up every day at 6:30am and making him breakfast to be served at approx. 7:00am so that he can leave by 7:30am (this all feels so deja vu) and THAT is the reason for the post. I am chronicling my morning breakfasts with Sammy and sharing them here on my blog.

Apparently, the sun has not risen by 6:30am here in Portland. Wow does that make it hard to get up :). I know I sound kind of whiny to most people who get up this early, or earlier every morning. My iPhone came in very handy this morning. I used it as an alarm (apparently Sammy's iPhone does not work well in that capacity). Then I used it as a camera for the first day of my "Breakfast With Sammy" project. Since I was using my iPhone, of course I used my new best friend: INSTAGRAM!!!

As the sun rose over the cascades this morning, I noticed it hit the chandelier in a very pretty way. I like to stop and look around at the pretty things when I am up at 6:30am.

Each breakfast this week will have a theme. Today's "Breakfast with Sammy Project" breakfast is titled:

"Nana Fern" because one of the things I remember vividly about visiting my salmon-fishing Grandparents in Tillamook is Nana Fern's Pan-Fried Salmon Fillets and Blueberry Pancakes.

My breakfast preparations began with Joey's "from scratch" pancake recipe. It is tried and true and here it is:

Joey's "From Scratch" Pancake Recipe

1 1/2 cups flour

3 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

(Sift these dry ingredients together then add the following)

1 Tbsp. white sugar

1 1/4 cups milk (I only had 1% this morning, so I added half buttermilk, half 1%)

1 egg

3 Tbsp. butter, melted

Mix the batter just until blended. Do not over blend or they will be tough pancakes. The batter is pretty thick, I usually end up adding a little extra milk, but Joey likes them super thick. I find them harder to cook when the batter is thick... Joey likes dark pancakes, I do not.

In order for the pancakes to be Nana Fern-like, I added fresh blueberries.

I purchased some lovely fresh caught Canadian Atlantic salmon last night at the grocery store. I added salt and pepper to flour and dredged the salmon fillets in the flour. I then pan fried them in a little oil. They weren't very thick and in order to get a nice color on them, I had the heat on med-high. It only took a couple minutes per side. I then removed them from the heat and covered them with foil to keep them warm. We prefer salmon cooked to medium here in our house, these were actually cooked through but still extremely moist and flavorful.

The finished product was delightfully delicious, just like Nana's always was.

One of the best things about eating breakfast at 7:00am at our house, the view:

And Sammy managed to leave the house on time this morning, even though he had no first period class. Success!

Looking Back on 2011

2012-01-05T17:11:00.000-08:00

As it turns out, 2011 was a pretty wonderful year.

Every year comes with its ups and downs, thrills and frustrations, smiles and tears.

No one said it was going to be easy, after all.

Despite some illness and broken bones, we were all very busy and ended the year healthy and happy.

January

January was a mild weather month here in Portland, completely storm free with some very warm days. Joey's roommate from Oberlin College, Taylor, visited for much of the month. Joey and Taylor took the T-Bird to Sauvie Island daily to work on their "J" term video project (something about burning down a cabin on the beach?!?). Michael and I visited with Sarah, Jacob and Star Lubitz on Mercer Island. Sammy played Catlin Basketball. Michael also started the first month of the year by traveling to Seattle and Silicon Valley for business... which he would continue to do every single month of 2011.

February

In February, Joey returned to Oberlin (by way of Taylor's house in Washington DC). Sammy went to the Catlin Winter Formal and continued playing basketball. Despite a rather frustrating team/season, we continued going to every game. Sammy played great ball. Lily had surgery to have a couple of benign cysts removed. She was very unhappy about this.

March

The first part of March was pretty uneventful, work, school, work, school, etc...

The week before Sammy's spring break, Michael and I headed down to Palm Springs to visit Grandma Lindy & Grandpa Stuart at PGA West. They graciously got us tickets to The Indian Wells Tennis Tournament in La Quinta. We went to every day and night match while we were there. Sammy joined us for the last weekend (the finals). We got to sit in the front row to watch Roger Federer play doubles *heaven*. After Palm Springs, the three of us went on a little college tour trip. We started at UCSD in La Jolla. Then we headed up to LA to visit Claremont McKenna and Occidental. We also visited Disneyland while we were in the area (thanks Elliot!). It was SO CROWDED. We had a great time. Joey visited friends in Ann Arbor, Michigan for his spring break.

April

In April our Farm Share started up again, yippee! We also harvested many delicious asparagus spears from our home garden. Michael and I traveled up to Seattle for the unveiling of David's headstone. On a happier note, we all had a blast playing with Jacob and the new toys he received from everyone. Michael went to the East Coast for business. Sammy attended the Junior/Senior Prom. And... after three batches of homemade cinnamon rolls, I realized I needed to make some changes. I started a new healthy living regimen that includes more fiber, whole grains and vegetables and a monitored calorie intake. I felt better immediately!

May

I started the exercise portion of my new healthy lifestyle with an intense bootcamp Kickboxing program in May. I lost a total of 21 pounds before my back gave out. We celebrated Mother's Day with brunch at Skamania Lodge in Washington. I turned 48. Sammy played Catlin Gabel tennis, took his SATs and went to the annual Memorial Day weekend Sasquatch Music Festival at the Columbia Gorge Amphitheater with friends. Joey decided to spend as much of the summer in Oberlin as he could, he got a job at the Oberlin Farmers Market. Joey spent the last week of May working at the Oberlin College Graduation and Michael spoke at a conference in Sweden.

June

In June we got our first berries of the season. We continued to get beautiful, delicious, sweet berries all the way into October! We celebrated Father's Day by feeding Michael lots of delicious food and going to a sic-fi movie with him. Sammy volunteered on Mt. Hood with the Elana Gold Project building fences to keep recreational vehicles out of preservation areas. Sammy attended basketball camp in Seaside with his team and got a broken nose while playing "tag" football. Joey visited a friend in Maine.

July

Joey was diagnosed with Mononucleosis the first week of July. Sammy's nose was broken back into place. After three weeks of rest, Joey flew home and we all headed to Happy Camp at Netarts, Oregon on the coast for the Godsey Family Retreat. Michael and I celebrated our 22nd Wedding Anniversary on the 29th and the next day we went to my 30 year High School Reunion. Joey flew back to Oberlin.

August

Joey was due to fly immediately back to Portland (after working his Farmer's Market job), but he was in a bike/car accident and suffered a broken clavicle. After a brief visit to the hospital, he flew to PDX the next day and went with us on our family vacation to our timeshare on Oahu where we also met up with the The Dombroskis and sampled our first Malasadas. Joey returned to Oberlin for the school year, moved out of one summer house and into another and then finally into his dorm room. Sammy started his senior year of high school.

September

Sammy and Michael visited two colleges in Maine in September and then Sammy visited Colorado College with friends the following week. While Michael and Sammy were back east, I got to attend a beautiful wedding in Hood River, Oregon (congrats Kathleen!). I also spent a great deal of the month canning pickles, zucchini relish, berries, peaches, jalapeños and tomato sauce. Joey turned 20 years old.

October

In early October, Steve Jobs died. This was a very big deal to Michael, so I included it. Michael and I attended our very last Back to School night. I tried to start back up at Kickboxing class, but apparently I have plantar fasciitis and bone spurs, which are quite painful. I am going to have to figure out a more gentle exercise routine for 2012 for this old body. Later in the month, Michael and I drove to Calistoga, California with Lily and celebrated Michael's 48th birthday doing pretty much nothing but relaxing (thanks Doug & Sydney). Sammy turned 18. Our farm share ended for the year. Sammy got his senior photos taken at Reed College on the most beautiful fall day.

November

November was an incredibly busy month. I was so excited to get Sammy's senior photos back and they turned out awesome. I need to use them every chance I get in order to get my money's worth since I bought the whole package! They are so good. Michael and I went on a crazy business/leisure trip back east and visited Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, New Jersey and New York City. We got to see Joey in both Cleveland and Oberlin. So fun! Sammy made the varsity basketball team. We went to our last school conference with Sammy, which was very stressful--but I shall not go into that. Sammy submitted his first college application. I finally finished canning all the great apples (into apple butter, applesauce and apple chutney) we got off our tree this year. Joey visited home and we hosted Thanksgiving at our house. I loved having both boys home for Thanksgiving!

December

And finally, December. We had a dry and pretty sunny December in Portland. Amazing. We left on the 22nd for Mexico and apparently the week we were gone, it was quite rainy. But when we were here, it was splendidly dry. Michael and I went to see a local professional performance of Wizard of Oz (cousin Christine was awesome) and also the Cirque du Soleil show Cavalia. Sammy quit basketball. We spent seven days in Mexico celebrating Grandma Lindy & Grandpa Stuart's 50th wedding anniversary with Aunt Deb, Uncle Steve and Marisa too. The all-inclusive resort was wonderful. Michael and I rang in the New Year with Grammy, Grampy, Danny and Aunt Tiffy at Resort at the Mountain. Joey had a party at our house and I am still trying to get some stains out of the carpet and figure out what happened to the laundry room wall....

Thanks 2011, for a really great time!

Haven't Done That in a While

2011-12-11T14:53:00.000-08:00

Those things that I hadn't done in a while and that I did in November:

(1) Paint the Dining Room

I am so excited I decided to have Danny paint the dining room. The much loved/much hated red wall & yellow ceiling dining room is gone. For all the haters, you put up with it for nearly 15 years. For all the lovers, I'm with ya, but I'm sorry--I needed a change. In its place, a Benjamin Moore (Aura Paint-awesome!!!) Rooftop Garden Dining Room with a Silken Pine Ceiling.

Michael and I both love the new dining room. As paint often does, it changes color all throughout the day and night depending on the amount of light, kind of light, etc... Sammy called it Army green. Hmmm, isn't that kid supposed to be color blind? Sometimes it does look a lot like Army green :), other times, not at all.

Obviously you cannot see the ceiling in the above photo as I am highlighting the Thanksgiving table, which brings up the other thing that I hadn't done in a while: (2) have Thanksgiving at our house.

Not only did we host Thanksgiving, but we (3) had a Vegan at our Thanksgiving table. This made coming up with a menu very exciting for me. Thank goodness for Pinterest. I was able to gather recipes and ideas on my Thanksgiving Board, organize and edit them and come up with a final menu. Everything was delicious.

Thanksgiving Menu

Starters

Holiday Brie En Croute from puffpastry.com

Obviously not Vegan. I used our home canned raspberry/strawberry preserves and slivered almonds. We served it with a sliced baguette.

Thai-Spiced Pumpkin Soup from 101cookbooks.com

(I made this Vegan by using Earth Balance margarine instead of butter on the squash)

Main Course

Yummy Turkey from notsohumble.blogspot.com

I cooked one turkey whole and also made a separate turkey breast. I really like using the turkey breast and will do that again when we feel like fresh home cooked turkey. No one ever eats the legs anyway. We had just enough left overs to last about a week.

Caramelized Tofu from 101cookbooks.com

Using his amazing cooking skills, Joey made this vegan tofu main course, but we put it on top of sauteed red cabbage instead of brussels sprouts.

Condiment

Gingered Cranberry Fig Chutney from food52.com

This is the most delicious cranberry sauce. I do not like canned, so I always make my own. This is the best recipe I have found. A big hit!!! (and Vegan)

Side Dishes

Pioneer Woman's Mashed Potatoes

I made these the day ahead and re-heated in the oven before serving. Perfection!

Turkey Pan Gravy from Foodnetworktv.com

Vegan Stuffing from savvyvegetarian.com

Tastes just as good as non-vegan. For the past couple years, I have been cooking my stuffing outside the turkey. Not because of safety issues, but because the turkey cooks faster and the stuffing tastes just as good. Just make sure to add plenty of liquid (in this case vegetable stock) and it will never be dry!

Old Fashioned Southern Cornbread Dressing from freerangetalk.com

I like to make a cornbread stuffing from this recipe, but I add pancetta and mushrooms. I start by pan frying about 1/2 pound of cubed pancetta (Boar's Head is great). I remove the pancetta from the pan and then add the celery and onions. After the celery and onions are soft, I add about 1/2 pound of diced crimini mushrooms and saute until the mushrooms have released their liquid. Then I proceed with the rest of the recipe. Remember, plenty of chicken stock keeps it nice and moist.

Vegan Green Bean Casserole from blog.fatfreevegan.com

This vegan version of the standard green bean casserole is BETTER than the original. I kid you not! This recipe is fantastic and it IS The World's Best Green Bean Casserole!

Shades of Green Chopped Salad from food52.com

Because I LOVE avocado and I didn't want an old wilted salad for Thanksgiving, I made this chopped salad with avocado, cucumber, pistachios and green apple. Yum! The grocery store did not have fresh chives, so I used cilantro in the dressing. It might not be everyone's favorite salad, but I thought it was fantastic. My kind of salad!!!

Grammy brought the fresh & delicious Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Dinner Rolls

and the yummy sweet potatoes

Desserts

Decadent Chocolate Tart from moderncomfortfood.com

because I don't do dessert without at least something chocolate

Anne Burrell's Apple Brown Butter Tart from foodnetwork.com

This recipe is so delicious. I cannot describe. With a little vanilla bean ice cream or whipped cream. Heaven!

and, for the grand finale... because we had a Vegan at the table, I broke down and made a Pumpkin Pie. I have never made pumpkin pie before. I do not really care for pumpkin pie, however, this is some really tasty pumpkin pie and totally vegan!

Four Ingredient Vegan Pumpkin Pie from kblog.lunchboxbunch.com

There is a link in the recipe to a vegan pie crust. I made the pie crust too! If you are vegan, or vegetarian, or lactose intolerant and even remotely like pumpkin pie, I urge you to try this recipe.

I am infamous for trying new recipes all the time and using dinner guests as guinea pigs. Thanksgiving was no exception. I had never made any of these recipes before. They were all delicious and turned out perfectly. What luck!

Crazy Whirlwind Trip

2011-11-30T21:40:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago I went with Michael on a business trip.

Michael is crazy. Michael likes to do maybe three meetings a day. Michael doesn't mind traveling to different cities every day. We were gone 10 days, took 7 flight segments, stayed in 5 cities and we had a blast.

First stop: Philadelphia.

I had never been to Philadelphia. We were there for exactly 19 hours. For me, at least 8 of those hours were spent sleeping and about 4 were spent working. That left 7 hours for eating and sightseeing. We had lunch across the street at the Four Seasons Hotel. Amazingly delicious, which was to be expected.

We then jumped on the on/off bus (stop located conveniently outside the Four Seasons) and rode it around 1.5 times. It was a beautiful, sunny 68-degree day. Warm for November I would think. We got off, strolled over to the Liberty Bell, took a walk to Reading Terminal Market and shared a Philly Cheesesteak sitting at the counter. We then walked leisurely back to our hotel through City Hall (Occupy Philadelphia), LOVE Park and all that and caught a taxi to the airport. I want to go back. Right now!

Philadelphia Art Museum

Next stop: Chicago

I had never been to Chicago. We had a lovely view of lots of buildings, The Hancock Tower and the lake beyond from our room at the Sofitel Water Tower. Great location. Nice hotel. Bad room service. There is so much great food in Chicago, such a pity that we got in so late and thought room service was our only option. Apparently there was kind of a dive diner (Tempo Cafe) 1/2 block from our hotel that has great late night people watching. Ah, next time! Anyway... Michael had meetings all over the place the next day and took the rental car out at about 7am. It snowed off and on for most of the morning and early afternoon. It didn't stick, but was very pretty.

That evening we went to the The Art Institute of Chicago and saw lots of great art. We had dinner at the museum restaurant: Terzo Piano, conveniently serving dinner only on Thursday evening. I wanted to stroll around Millennium Park, but Michael didn't have a coat. Sheesh.

The next day, we took a two hour tour around Chicago. We got the low down on all the buildings, history, etc... We wanted to take the architecture tour by water, but it was pretty chilly. Chicago was actually the only chilly spot on our trip. After our tour we headed to Lou Malnati's for some deep dish pizza. It was yummy, but oh so filling. We ate half of a small.

We walked quickly back to our hotel (it was chilly), grabbed our car and headed to the airport. A total of 44 hours was spent in Chicago. I definitely want to return.

Third Stop: Cleveland.

We spent the weekend in Cleveland. We got a fantastic rate at the Ritz-Carlton. Yeah, they have a Ritz-Carlton there. I know, I wouldn't have guessed it either. It was nice. Not luxurious, but nice and we had great views from our room of the awesome weather! It was close to 70 and sunny in Cleveland! What luck.

Joey drove his beloved Chevy Chevette into Cleveland and we headed out to the The West Side Market. There was quite a selection of meats, cheeses, baked goods, ethnic food, cheap produce and a fun atmosphere. The market has been around for something like 100 years. Steve's Gyros is supposed to be really, really good, but the line was out the door.

After the market I dragged Joey and Michael to A Christmas Story House & Museum. I kid you not, this is #4 on TripAdvisor.com's "Things to Do in Cleveland". West Side Market is #3. In case you were wondering, The USS Cod Submarine Memorial is #1 and a CEMETERY is #6. Gotta LOVE Cleveland! Funny thing, they did not use the inside of the house for filming, but someone bought the house they had used for the exterior shots (pretty recently) and renovated it to look like the movie set. A guy two houses down sells "parking" for the "Christmas Story House Tour" for $5. Parking is plentiful in the neighborhood. Right outside the house even. Crazyville. We did not take the tour of the "fake" house, but the gift store and museum were a hoot. All in all, worth it to me, but I wouldn't go asking Michael and Joey their opinion :)

That afternoon we took Joey to his favorite Cleveland record/electronics store, Play It Again Sam. Of course everything is used, refurbed, etc... We bought him an old turntable (yes, for playing records) as a belated birthday present. Joey's dorm room has a bit of an 80's thing going on.

For dinner Joey directed us to Happy Dog. I had actually seen this place on The Food Network. We weren't too adventurous, but they have all kinds of great toppings, like: black truffle honey mustard, momocho's habanero sauce, garlic-tomato-basil jam, "alien" pickle relish, chunky peanut butter, french brie cheese.... and so much more. I know everyone is going to want all this great info for their next jaunt to Cleveland!

On Sunday we drove to Oberlin College and had brunch with Joey and his roommate. Joey then gave us a tour and it was another really lovely day. The college looked much more beautiful on a warm day in November with beautifully colored leaves still on the trees and green grass. As opposed to brown/burnt grass, 95 degree temps and 100% humidity in the heat of the summer, which is what we experienced when we dropped him at school August of last year.

Below is the courtyard between the art museum and the art studio building. Joey likes to hang out here.

After almost two days in Cleveland, we flew to La Guardia Airport in NYC, rented a car, and drove to somewhere'sville, NJ. Frankly I cannot remember the name of the place we stayed. It was a nice Marriott though, perhaps Hanover. Anyway, the next day Michael had meetings all over NJ and it was a lovely day: 70 & sunny, again.

And then, we finally made it into the city, Manhattan. We had three glorious days in NYC. We ate, we walked (in the lovely 60 degree evening temperatures), we saw 'Book of Mormon The Musical', we ate some more, we walked some more.

On the last day, it rained. We walked about a mile in the rain to Grand Central Station for the most wonderful crab cakes, clam chowder and lobster rolls I have ever had at Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant NY. Perhaps it was because I was soaking wet and starving, but I am telling you, this food was amazing. Grand Central Station is pretty amazing. NYC is pretty amazing. Other great food to mention: Blue Smoke Restaurant for BBQ, i Trulli for homemade pasta/Italian, Island Burger for amazing burgers and shakes.

On our last night in NYC we saw another musical: Avenue Q. We got half off tickets and it was a fun show, if not a little raunchy (nothing compared to BofM The Musical). We donated $20 to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids and got our picture taken with Trekkie Monster.

Like I said, it was a Crazy Whirlwind Trip!

And Just Like That....

2011-11-30T18:53:00.000-08:00

My Baby Turned 18!

It happened over a month ago.

I know, unbelievable.

Sammy, Age 3 months

Sammy, Age 2 years

Sammy, Age 7

Sammy, Age 11

Sammy, Age 13

Sammy, Age 18

It does, it happens just like that. You turn around. A snap of a finger. He's all grown up.

We got it!

2011-11-30T10:18:00.000-08:00

A professional photo of Joey that I am affectionately calling his Senior Photo, because I am weird like that and there doesn't seem to be a lot of significance to a Sophomore College Photo.

Anyway, I love it!

Where did it go?

2011-11-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

I am speaking of the time, of course. Three months since my last post. Whoa!

I did and I did not finish my canning. I finished some of the things, but not others. It was real trial and error this year and some things worked, some did not.

We got quite a few jars of tomato sauce, but not as many as last year. Many of the tomatoes on the vine did not ripen before cold weather hit. I tried some indoor ripening that, for the most part, worked. I did not go out and buy extra tomatoes this year. The sauce is not as rich and red as I would have liked, but I can fix that in the recipes I make.

I am very excited to announce, we had grapes this year! Lots of them. Unfortunately, my attempt at grape jelly was only a moderate success. At first it would not set, so I gradually added more pectin and then BAM! It was too thick. Oh well. I got five jars and I will be able to use them in recipes. Not sure how spreadable the jelly is for say, peanut butter sandwiches?

Beautiful little grapes from the garden. Our fruit harvest is growing. We now have blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, apples, plums, blackberries (if I don't pull them) & grapes. We are supposed to have kiwi, but I have yet to see any of those on the vine.

I am disappointed in myself that I did not get the time to can the applesauce/apple chutney. I did make a wonderful batch of apple butter, but we still have a bunch of apples in cold storage. I used some for Thanksgiving. They are reaching their limit in terms of storage/freshness. Perhaps this is the weekend for some warm, cinnamon applesauce. I am not excited to pull all the canning supplies back out, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do!

Canning Part 3: Pickles Three Ways

2011-08-31T13:19:00.000-07:00

Late last Saturday afternoon, Michael and I decided to head to Sauvie Island for some pickling cucumbers. This being our first time making pickles, or picking pickling cucumbers, I think I should have done a little more research. But alas, lazy as ever, we just headed out to Sauvie Island Farms for some U-Pick. Last year I stopped at Kruger's Farm Market and grabbed the already picked peaches I needed and some canning supplies. I did not pick anything myself. When they pick the fruit and veggies for you, they know what to pick. When you pick for yourself, I suggest doing some research.

It was a beautiful Saturday and we arrived about an hour before closing.

We headed to the pickling cucumber patch.

We picked nearly 20 pounds of pickling cucumbers

I had heard there were beaches on Sauvie Island, but I had never been to one. Michael and I took a drive around the island until we found a beach. See, here I am, on a beach, on Sauvie Island.

And here is where my pickling adventures began. Michael had done a much better job of picking cucumbers that would fit in the jars than I had. It became obvious that for many of the pickles (too long or too fat) I was going to need to slice them into rounds or spears in order to fit them in the jar. Also, some were too ripe with large seeds (when pickling cucumbers get beyond a certain size, they are too ripe). I decided to go ahead and not waste any of the cucumbers. I pickled them all.

I started with a recipe for Garlic Dill Pickles from the food blog Food in Jars

As you can see, there are lots of large seeds because I chose the largest cucumbers for slicing into rounds.

I then handpicked all the cucumbers that would fit into the large jars and pickled those whole using a combination of simple recipes. To each jar I added fresh dill, dill seed, mustard seeds, red chili flakes, peppercorns, cloves of garlic and a simple water, cider vinegar and pickling salt brine.

and then processed accordingly.

The jar below is very large... too large to fit in any water bath I own. So these will just go in the refrigerator for about 3 weeks.

I then took the shortest and fattest of the cucumbers and cut them into spears.

We ended up with 21 jars of pickles. Apparently they need to sit for at least three weeks before they are ready to serve. Once we give them a try and make sure they are edible, we will probably be looking to give some way. That's a lot of pickles.

(Above photo taken by Michael)

And finally, Stinky (er, I mean Tinkerbell) the Pickle Queen gives her approval.

Canning Part 2: Sweet & Spicy Cucumber/Zucchini Relish

2011-08-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

Making this relish recipe was a no-brainer. I had all the ingredients on hand. I actually tweaked a couple recipes to get to this. It should be interesting to see how (if) it turns out.

Sweet & Spicy Cucumber/Zucchini Relish

4 whole cucumbers, any kind (I had leftovers from canning pickles)

2 whole medium zucchini (lots of zucchini from the farm this week)

4 stalks celery

1 whole red bell pepper

1 jalapeno peppers (from farm)

6 cloves garlic (farm)

2 cups apple cider vinegar (leftover from canning pickles)

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

4 T Salt

2 T Mustard Seed

1 T Celery Seed

1 T Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

In food processor, process all veggies on the chop mode, finely chop all but do not puree.

Put veggies and remaining ingredients in large stock pot. Bring to boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Simmer ten minutes. Strain to remove most of the liquid.

Put in clean hot jars to 1/2 inch from top. Put lid and screw band on tight. Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Above: All ingredients are in the pot.

Below: After simmering for 10 minutes

Finished Product:

I am not sure what we will use all this relish for, but Michael promises me he will eat whatever I preserve. Wait until you see all the pickles!

Canning Part 1: Blackberry Lemon Jam

2011-08-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

Above: Blackberries from the backyard, August 2008.

This week's treat:

U-Pick Blackberries at La Finquita del Buho. Tons of blackberries and so easy to reach. Totally accessible. I only have a few scrapes and scratches, seriously. Michael and I spent about 1/2 hour picking blackberries and we easily walked home with 3-4 lbs. of berries. Picking blackberries is one of those quintessential summertime activities. I asked Michael if he used to pick blackberries when he was a kid and through his whining and moaning about the stickers and the bees, he said no. He had never seen a blackberry bush until he moved to Oregon and had no idea how they grew. Seriously? Wow. I guess that is what happens when you come from a place that is impeccably manicured. There are no brambling bushes at the end of the street (or in the backyard, as is the case with our house).

Truth be told, I am not a big fan of eating plain old blackberries. I mean they are okay, but certainly no strawberry or raspberry in my book. What I do love, however, is blackberry jam.

Blackberry Lemon Jam

3-4 lbs. blackberries, rinsed & picked through (or whatever amount you have, add or reduce sugar and lemon accordingly)

3 cups sugar

zest & juice of 2 large lemons

pectin (read package for appropriate amount for quantity of fruit and then add more, my blackberry jam is always too runny. I never add enough pectin)

Put berries into a very large pot. I do not bother trying to remove seeds, I am way too lazy. Add the pectin to the berries a little at a time, stirring constantly. Heat on high, continue stirring until mixture comes to a full boil. Add sugar, continue stirring. Bring mixture to a full hard boil (will probably take about 8-10 minutes), stirring constantly. Boil for 5 minutes.

Continue canning process by putting jam into sterilized jars of your choosing. Remember to use new lids for a good seal. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath (there should be at least 1 inch boiling water above jars). This amount of fruit made 10 half pints.

I absolutely love these flat half pint Ball jars.

Time to open a jar of this jam, spread a little mascarpone cheese on a slice of whole wheat toast and slather with homemade blackberry lemon jam.

I know, I cheated. This is actually a picture from last year's blackberry jam:

One Crazy Summer, Oahu

2011-08-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

On the heels of spending a week at the beach with the Godsey Family, earlier this month we jumped a plane to spend a week at our timeshare at Ko Olina on Oahu in Hawaii.

I make it all sound so easy. Like we are literally just galavanting around from one beach to another when, in fact, this has been one of the strangest summers on record.

Earlier this summer, Sammy broke his nose. Well, someone else's elbow broke it, but still. Having it "broken back" into place looked pretty painful for Sammy, but all in all it was a week of wondering if Sammy was going to have a nose with "character" or not. Sammy's nose is fine. What is kind of nutty is, that very same week Joey was diagnosed with Mononucleosis. After spending the better part of his Freshman year at college sick, he was finally diagnosed with Mono in July. This created a frenzy of worry for Michael and I since he was not really well enough to jump on a plane to come home, so what do you do? Jump on a plane and go to him? And do what? Sit around in a house in rural Ohio with 5 young men and watch over your 19-year old son making sure he rests. Did I mention said house has no A/C and we are talking Ohio in the summer? And that the only "cure" for Mono is rest, fluids and food. We did not go to Ohio. We trusted that in the 19 years raising our kid, we taught him how to eat and drink. The Mono was forcing the rest part--resting is not something you can teach or force upon a kid like Joey. The remainder of July went along fairly uneventfully (at least for our family) and Joey promised us over and over that he was resting and eating and drinking.

Superstitiously speaking, don't they say things come in three's?

(1) Broken Nose

(2) Mononucleosis

and

(3) Broken Clavicle

(for my own sanity, I am bulking the boys together here and saying our three things are done)

With his much improved Mono, by the beginning of August, Joey was back to his Oberlin Farmer's Market job and also his Oberlin radio show. He was scheduled to fly home on August 2nd to spend a few days in Portland before accompanying us to Oahu. On his way home, on his bike, from his radio show, a car ran a red light and entered an intersection. Joey was also heading into that intersection with the complete right of way, but there was a car... straight ahead... and he could not stop fast enough. He crashed into the side of the car, flew off his bike and his backpack with all his belongings ended up scattered around the street. The driver of the car was very apologetic and even drove him back to his house. Apparently he contemplated not going to the ER so that he could make his flight. We are very glad he went to the ER.

A few X-Rays, numerous Vicodin pills and hundreds of dollars later, Joey made it home to Portland.

Our trip to Hawaii was filled with much rest, many episodes of Star Trek Voyager and Twin Peaks streamed from Netflix, lots of ice cream, beach cabanas, warm Hawaiian sand and surf, gorgeous sunsets, dinners with friends, shave ice and maybe a couple too many Malasadas.

Above: Sunset from our room.

Above: Our timeshare freezer.

Above: The view of our little beach cove from the cabana.

Above: Joey has removed his sling, but he is still pretty droopy to that left side.

Ko Olina now has a little ice cream shop. It is pretty mediocre and I cannot remember the name of it.

Below: It made Michael very sleepy.

Below: Sunset on the beach.

Below: With all the gorgeous places to take a family picture, somehow we choose one of the ugliest spots, the lobby of Roy's at Ko Olina. I am not sure what Joey is doing with that hand at Sammy's neck. I think Sammy is wondering the same thing.

Above: we were so happy to spend some time with Tracey and John Dombroski. They were great travel partners and if it wasn't for Tracey, we would not have tried Leonard Jr's Malasadas.

We enjoyed our trip, but as always, it was way too short.

The Gorgeous Oregon Coast

2011-07-31T20:27:00.000-07:00

It may not be all that warm and sometimes there is a whole lot of wind, but the Oregon Coast is so beautiful, I frankly do not care.

The Godsey family spent last week at Happy Camp. Seriously, that is not some bizarre euphemism I am concocting after spending a good portion of the week with 30 of my family members. I promise! It is the name of the little area of Netarts where 31 Godseys distributed themselves into 4 rental houses. Our house had a beautiful view of the bay and the ocean beyond.

Above: Tiff and Danny on the beach outside our house.

We had a great time hiking part of the Cape Trail with part of the Godsey family. Joey and I would have liked to have joined Andy, Lindsay, Lucy, Byron and Mei Mei and hiked the whole 5 miles round trip, however, Mono and hiking do not go well together. Instead we hiked about a mile down and about a mile back. The trail was lovely and the view was beautiful all the way around.

Logan is mesmerized by the "BEAR COUNTRY" sign. Not sure if you know this or not, but if you encounter a bear in the forest, you are not supposed to turn and run, you are supposed to stay and make yourself look large (a lot easier for some of us than others).

Above: Andy and Lindsay are ready to go. Soon enough they will realize that hiking with preschoolers takes a little longer than hiking with adults and dogs.

Above: Lucy the Wheaton Terrier is a non-stop ball of energy. I took maybe 5 shots and this is as much of her body as I got.

Joey and I encountered this friendly little snake on the trail on our way back up. He was just catching some rays on the hillside.

Byron and Bridget took a quick detour to peer over the edge of the trail down to the ocean.

Although tree roots on the trail are beautiful, they are a little rough on the little ones. There was some tripping and falling going on.

The view from the trail was spectacular.

We also spent some time at Cape Lookout Beach with Tiff and Danny:

And some time at the gorgeous north side of Pacific City Beach:

We loved spending so much time with Joey. You may have noticed there are no photos of Sammy. That is because we let him invite friends and therefore, we really never saw him, except at meal times.

Next week we head to Hawaii. There will be more blue sky and more blue ocean, but hopefully a lot less sweatshirts! Actually, I plan on packing NO sweatshirts.

Fried Green Tomatillos

2011-07-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

I was watching Aarti Party on the Food Network the other day. I love Aarti because I love Indian cuisine, Indian spices, and I just love her... she is so cute. I was totally rooting for her on Next Food Network Star last season. Anyway, she was making Fried Green Tomatillos with Burrata, Cumin & Basil. I have an absolute obsession with Burrata cheese. Basically it is cheese made from mozzarella and cream. So rich, so delicious. A little goes a long way.

Tonight I decided to make the fried green tomatillos but I did not particularly feel like Indian spices. I kind of felt like a BLT. I ended up topping the tomatillos with Burrata, cherry tomatoes, avocado and bacon. I must say, it did not have the kick of Aarti's recipe, but it was mighty tasty.

Fried Green Tomatillos with Burrata, Bacon, Avocado & Tomato Garnish

Ingredients

4 oz. Burrata cheese

4 medium-large tomatillos (husks removed and rinsed), sliced 1/4-inch thick

salt and pepper to taste

4 Tablespoons Canola oil

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 avocado, Diced

1 cup cherry tomatoes, Diced

4 slices bacon (I diced mine up before frying. It cuts down on fry time and they get very crispy)

1 lime

Line a baking sheet with paper towels. Set a cooling rack over it. This will be where you put your fried green tomatillos.

Cut the Burrata Cheese into bite-size pieces (1 per slice of tomatillo). Salt and pepper the pieces.

Heat Canola oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Do not let it get to smoking point, that is too hot. To check that the oil is hot, drop a pinch of the flour-cornmeal mixture into the pan. If it sizzles enthusiastically at you, it's time to go!

Pour the buttermilk into a flat-bottomed dish and season with a little salt and pepper. In another bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour and cayenne pepper. Season with a generous pinch of salt and pepper.

Dip both sides of the tomatillo slice in the buttermilk. Then, using your other hand, dredge it in the cornmeal mixture. Shake off the excess cornmeal and drop in into the hot oil. Repeat with as many slices as you can fit into the pan without overcrowding. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

To assemble: place the tomatillos on a platter. Top each with a piece of burrata, some diced avocado, cherry tomatoes and bacon pieces. Squeeze a little lime juice over the top. Eat immediately before things get soggy!

Then and Now

2011-07-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

I have been rummaging through my picture stash again. This month Michael and I will be celebrating our 22nd wedding anniversary. We will also be heading to the Oregon Coast in a week for a Godsey Family Retreat. Thirty of the Godsey Clan will be there. Yes, I said 30 people and that includes the newest member, Hudson Godsey, a mere one day old!

So here we all are on July 29, 1989 in Los Angeles:

(click on picture to enlarge)

L to R: Jill Godsey Junior (age 16), Loy Godsey, Byron Godsey (age 12), Karen Godsey, Ben Godsey (age 7), Kari Godsey Lubitz (age 26), Michael Lubitz (age 25), Andy Godsey (age 7), Tiffany Godsey (age 20), Kim Godsey Williams (age 17), Sarah Godsey Franchi (age 11), Betsy Godsey Sass (age 9)

Twenty years later: August, 2009

The Godsey Family makes an appearance in Yachats, Oregon for

Andy & Lindsay's Wedding

(click on picture to enlarge)

Kari, Jill, Sarah, Kim, Karen, Andy, Lindsay, Loy, Tiffany, Byron, Betsy, Ben

I am very much looking forward to our retreat!

foto finagling

2011-07-16T18:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks to an invite from my Sister Sarah, I have a new obsession: Pinterest. Prior to "pinning" I bookmarked everything. Pictures of fireplace surround ideas for the living room, recipes I wanted to try, clothes and household items I was thinking of purchasing on the internet. My bookmark bar was an ugly mess and it took me forever to find the link I was looking for because I was usually too lazy to rename the bookmark something that I could remember. Well, Pinterest is way more fun, easier to use and it looks nice too.

One of my Boards is Photo Inspiration and includes photos that make me smile, or make me want to take more photos, or make me want to learn just how they got those fantastic photos. Something I noticed right away, A LOT of people use Photoshop. I took a class once, but I never purchased the software. I am technologically challenged and lazy. I have just not had the desire to learn a new software. I can barely use the camera I purchased 3 years ago. Therefore, I use the iPhoto that comes with Mac computers. It is simplistic, but so am I. I have been having some fun turning my color photos to black & white, adding an antique look, or fading the colors. What I have noticed is, I like to fade colors pretty much just as much as I like to enhance them. I know some day I will break down and buy the Creative Suite that includes Photoshop and many other goodies. But for today, I am happy just simply playing with color.

Antiqued Hydrangea

B&W Baseball

Enhanced Camel

Faded Canned Vegetables

Sepia Apples

We've got berries!

2011-07-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

Last summer I posted about my successful adventure planting berries in our hillside garden boxes: Berry Satisfaction. Today, you can barely even see that the raspberries and strawberries are indeed planted in boxes as the plants have grown to such a large size. The raspberries are towering over their support systems and growing to at least my height while the strawberries are sending shoots out over the sides of the boxes and just generally having a great old time. While I'm sure some kind of berry plant thinning is in my near future, for the moment I am happy to watch the somewhat ordered chaos going on out back.

As far as fruit goes, the raspberries are just beginning to put out their berries. We have been nibbling a few sweet morsels here and there. For the past couple weeks, we have been getting about a pint of strawberries every couple days from the strawberry patch. We even blended some into a strawberry puree on Fourth of July to add to our lemonade. After a thorough picking the afternoon of July 3rd, we have not been down to the berry beds since. Today I decided it was time to pick and water. Not only did I find a nice little stash of juicy raspberries, but the strawberries had gone wild. So many ripe strawberries, I was glad I optimistically brought a large bowl down with me.

After a little weeding, a little watering and a lot of picking, I am excited with my bowls of berries.

I have decided to take some of the berries and make these muffins: Lemon Ricotta Muffins

(Of course I will use my whole wheat flour).

I can't wait to taste them! (the muffins, of course... as I have already tasted the berries!)

What's a Father to do?

2011-06-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

What's a Father to do on Father's Day?

Well, the Father in our house enjoyed a long, casual chat with his college boy who is far away in Ohio.

(Michael and his boys in Sicily, Summer 2009)

He talked his younger son into making him a special bowl of Ramen for lunch for which he picked up the ingredients at Uwajimaya on Saturday.

(This is a stock photo of Michael's favorite Kyoto Ramen, Tenkaippin)

He got to go see 'Super 8' at the IMAX at Bridgeport Village (there may have been a cheeseburger, fries and shake included with that).

(Joe's burgers at Bridgeport are pretty good)

He got to relax a little bit and got loved on by his many furry children.

He may or may not have been informed by his Wii Fit that he lost 38 pounds (what's up with that?)

And, his loving wife prepared him a scrumptious meal including:

Rich luscious carrots with a hint of honey

Parmesan Risotto with crumbled bacon on top

and Japanese Misoyaki Butterfish with Sizzling Soy Vinaigrette

I really hope he enjoyed himself :)

My 200th Post: Hello Spring!

2011-05-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

What does this Oregonian do on her first warm, sunny Spring day off? Work in the yard, of course. The weeds are crazy out there. Our poor strawberries somehow managed to put out a bunch of blossoms even though the weeds were literally towering over them. I weeded the strawberry beds first. Well, first and last as I had allotted myself a couple hours in the yard and that is what it took just to weed the berries.

In our sloped yard, the berry beds just happen to be right above the apple trees. Our poor apple trees have really been suffering the past couple years. They were in desperate need of proper pruning and fertilizing. Last year we had no mature apples. We had lots of little green apples at one point in time, but then they all just fell to the ground when they were barely the size of my thumb. In the Fall, I called in a tree doctor (a.k.a. General Tree Service) and had them do a little diagnosis. The General Tree guy informed me that last year was bad as we had lots of rain and when the bees needed to pollinate, it was too wet. They also said our trees were desperately in need of pruning, fertilizing and disease/bug spray. Okay, thanks. So we set up a schedule for the Winter/Early Spring and now the beautiful blossoms are sitting there on this sunny day waiting to be pollinated. As I sat there looking at the blossoms (apple tree and crabapple blossoms make me very happy), I noticed BEES! Bees everywhere!!! I am hoping this is a sign that we will have apples this Fall, but I can be patient. If this is not the year, well then I will enjoy these blossoms, because they are beautiful.

Apple Tree Blossom Buds

Partially Open Apple Tree Blossoms

A Happy Bee (hopefully pollinating) on a Sunny Day

Proof That We Had Blue Sky in Portland

A Grape Leaf Just Beginning to Open

The First Lilacs in Our Yard (I'm pretty sure they are a little late)

Blueberry Buds

Crabapple Blossoms

Old Dogwood Tree in the Backyard

Dogwood Blossom

I often think Hydrangea are my favorite flower, but then I remember all the wonderful Spring blossoms that are so special because they arrive just as you think you can't stand another day of winter. I love apple blossoms and lilacs and dogwood and magnolia and well, I pretty much love them all.

Happy Spring!!!

Worth waiting for... Asparagus!

2011-05-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

There are some situations for which you just have to be patient. Especially in the garden. There is no instant gratification on most fruits, for example. And we knew when we decided to plant asparagus in the vegetable garden that we would have to wait until the third year to harvest.

Here are the little baby plants their very first season:

Well, we did it. We waited and now the asparagus are on their third year and it is asparagus harvesting season (at least in the Pacific Northwest). Today I picked (well cut) our very first asparagus and they are so beautiful.

I prefer to eat asparagus roasted in the oven with just a little olive oil, salt & pepper.

There are lots and lots of asparagus growing out in our little patch, so I'm pretty sure we may get sick of asparagus before we run out. Also, we received Sorrel in our farm share this week and I made the Sorrel Pesto (like last year).

I topped our Coho Salmon fillets with the pesto. It was a very green and very delicious dinner tonight.

For Salmon & Avocado Lovers

2011-04-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

I am proud to say I am on Day 22 of my new eating lifestyle.

I feel great and have lost 13 pounds so far, a sure sign that things are working. But more importantly, I am replacing old bad habits with good new ones.

I am having fun preparing flavorful meals and have re-discovered so many healthy foods that I love. I have also been trying a few "old diet tricks." Since my portions are smaller, I started using smaller plates so that the food looks abundant. I also pulled some decorative plates out of the cupboard, like the Pottery Barn Tropical Themed Cocktail plate above. Funny, I did not remember there was a recipe for Pina Colada on the back of the plate.

I have also been enjoying reading cookbooks about a Mediterranean lifestyle and even scrounged up some pretty decent "diabetes friendly" cookbooks. On Saturday I found a recipe in one of the cookbooks that included two of my all time healthy favorites: Salmon & Avocado. The picture is not as stellar as it could be as I took this today using the leftovers.

Wild Pacific Salmon with Creamy Avocado Sauce

4 wild Pacific Salmon fillets (5-6 ounces each), about 1" thick

Cooking Spray

Salt & Pepper to taste

1/2 large avocado, peeled, pitted and quartered

1/4 cup fat-free sour cream (I used non-fat Greek Yogurt)

1 tablespoon reduced-fat mayonnaise

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1. Place salmon fillets, skin side down, on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet. Salt and pepper to taste, then coat with vegetable or olive oil spray.

2. Preheat the broiler. Cook the salmon for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the fish is opaque.

3. While the fish is cooking, in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade, combine the avocado, sour cream or yogurt, mayonnaise, lemon juice, garlic, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Process, scraping down the bowl occasionally, until mixture is smooth.

4. With a spatula, lift each salmon fillet away from the skin (although the skin IS good for you, it has a lot of extra fat) and set on dinner plates. Server a dollop of the sauce with each salmon fillet.

Approx. 275 calories per serving.

Green Split Pea Soup

2011-04-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite vegetarian meals... I LOVE split pea soup!!!

Ingredients
1 T Canola Oil
1/2 cup chopped turnip or parsnip (or both)
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1 pound green split peas
8 cups low sodium vegetable broth
Salt and Pepper to taste
Hot Pepper Sauce, to taste (I added about 1 T)

1. Set a pot over medium-high heat for 1 minute. Add the oil and swirl to coat the bottom. Heat for 30 seconds. Add the turnip, celery, onion, carrot, thyme and bay leaves. Stir. Cook stirring occasionally for 4-5 minutes or until softened. Add the peas and broth. Bring almost to a boil.

2. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover partially and simmer for about 2 hours, or until the peas are very soft. Remove the bay leaves and discard. Season with salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste. If you like your split pea soup thinner and creamier, you can blend in a food processor, blender or immersion blender adding water if desired for consistency. I like mine thick and hearty. I chopped the vegetables pretty small and cooked it for about 3 hours and left it thick. The taste is amazing!

Each cup is low in calories, vegetarian, full of vitamin A and packed with fiber and protein.

Healthier Apple Crisp

2011-04-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

Ingredients
2 T Better Butter (Better Butter is 1/3 unsalted butter + 2/3 Canola Oil--the flavor of butter with 1/3 the saturated fat)
1/2 cup rolled oats
4 apples, peeled, cored & sliced
1 T Honey
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
Cooking Spray
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 T Cinnamon

Directions
Step 1 Preheat oven to 375
Step 2 Dice apples & put in the bottom of 8x8 baking pan
Step 3 Mix the remaining ingredients, except for honey & cooking spray (fingers or a pastry blender work well)
Step 4 Spread the mixture on top of the apples
Step 5 Spray with cooking spray & drizzle with honey
Step 6 Bake at 375 for 35 mins.

Enjoy! I ate mine in a small portion and savored every bite. Michael and Sammy ate larger portions topped with vanilla bean ice cream.

White Bean & Winter Greens Soup

2011-04-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

This is a really simple and hearty soup recipe. First, I took a whole bag of Great Northern White Beans, did a quick soak (instructions on the bag) and set aside. This takes a little over an hour. Or you could use about 4 cans white beans, drained (Great Northern or Cannellini or any other large white bean).

I started the soup with the leek from our farm share.

I chopped it up and tossed it in a stock pot.

(You could also use shallots or onions, about a cup. Carrots are also great in soups. I like to saute them too, with the onions.) I then added a couple cloves of garlic, chopped fine.

I sauteed the leeks and garlic on medium heat in about 2-3 Tablespoons Olive Oil.

Saute them well to bring out all the great flavor, at least 5 minutes.

I chopped up the Kale and Swiss Chard (at least 1-2 cups of each) then tossed them in on top of the leeks. You could use any greens you like. Spinach is good too.

I sauteed the greens with the leeks for about 2 minutes.

I then seasoned with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.

I added the white beans, 4 cups low sodium chicken stock and 4 cups water.

Bring the soup to a boil, turn down the heat, cover and let simmer for about an hour or more.

Finally, before serving, salt and pepper to taste.

You could also add a few dashes hot sauce for a great kick.

Each one cup serving includes approx. 9g of fiber, about a third of the recommended daily intake.

The farm is back, and just in time!

2011-04-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

I've finally done it.

I have been thinking about this for years. I've always known the answers, I was just too lazy to follow through. Fourteen days ago I really did it. I changed the way I eat... for good. My last trip to the doctor was not a pleasant one. I have been carrying around an extra 50-60 pounds since I had kids (Sammy will turn 18 years old in 2011!) I had made no real progress on my weight loss goal, even with my pre-diabetes diagnosis three years ago. I had not fulfilled my commitment to exercise. I was paying little to no attention to my blood sugars and blood pressure. I was relying on medication to do the work I needed to be doing for myself. I was going to bed every night feeling bloated and downing the antacids. Blaming things on bad genetics and a weak metabolism wasn't getting me anywhere. I could see my future and it wasn't pretty.

When it comes to diets, there are just so many and they do all work if you stick with them, at least temporarily. I have been on many, many diets. What I didn't want to do this time around was start another fad diet or become dependent on food someone else was preparing for me (unless it was my own personal chef... which I cannot afford, of course.)

I decided to lay down 10 basic eating rules to start and stick with them:

1) Keep track of every single thing I eat, every day

2) 8-10 glasses of water a day, without fail

3) Eat a healthy breakfast within 20 minutes of waking up in the morning (this is really important to me as my morning blood sugar readings are the only high ones... meaning my body is not functioning properly during the overnight fasting period, so the quicker I can get the fuel in in the morning, the better)

4) No refined sugars or flours, period. (this is huge for me, huge!)

5) A minimum 30g of fiber every single day

6) A maximum 1200 calories per day until I earn more with proper exercise

7) A maximum 30 fat grams per day

8) A maximum of 1800mg of salt per day

9) No red meat and at least three vegetarian days a week and no eating after dinner (or after 8:30pm)

10) Maximum one weigh-in per week (although weight is important, eating healthy is the most important part of my new lifestyle, so no more obsessing about the scale)

I found a great website called Calorie Count. I add my foods in and it keeps track of the balance of carbs/proteins/fats as well as nutrients & vitamins. I get a letter grade every day representing how well I did. The over achiever in me loves that! So far, straight A's!

Other than having to look the doctor in the face... again... and explain how I had failed miserably since my last blood tests, I really do not know what has come over me. It is like someone whispered in my ear while I was sleeping, you can do it, you can do it, you want to be healthy... it is the most important thing to you. Just do it!

I am really excited about how great I feel. The house is filled with lots of yummy things like Steel Cut Oats, Fiber Cereal, Homemade Split Pea Soup, Black beans soaked and cooked myself with no added salt and just lots of great flavor, fresh organic fruit (unfortunately for now the fruit has to travel from California as the weather in the Pacific NW has been miserable), non-fat greek yogurt, 100% whole grains, broccoli, spinach...

And speaking of dark, leafy greens...

our farm share started up again last weekend. This year we decided to split our share with the Ruby family and so this was our first week back out at the farm.

This week's share includes:

2 heads of Butter Crunch Lettuce, 1 bunch Arugula, 1 bunch Spinach, 1 Leek, 2 Shallots, 1 bunch Kale, 1 bunch Swiss Chard and Sprouting Broccoli

I'll keep on sharing yummy recipes. I have a delicious vegetarian cannellini bean soup planned for the leeks and fresh greens.

Soon I will be tackling my exercise demons... wish me luck! I feel great!!!

Here we go again...

2011-03-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I realized when I titled this that it could mean so many things. What I am really talking about though is here we go again with the whole college search process.

Sammy is nearing the end of his Junior year. Soon to come: SAT exams (and SAT II's), college choices, essay writing, application process and deadlines, application fees, the waiting game and alas, writing more large checks to a yet to be named college/university.

Last week was Spring Break for Sammy. After our great visit to LaQuinta/PGA West/Indian Wells tennis garden, we headed off to San Diego. The weather went from 85 and sunny in Palm Springs to 50 and rainy, just like that. When we checked into our hotel near the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus in La Jolla, it was downright stormy.

The following morning it was still very, very rainy. We got lucky as our 90 minute tour just happened to take place between down pours. I used to work at UCSD when Michael was in Law School at the University of San Diego. The tour was great and very informative and afterwards I got to reconnect with an old friend.

Sammy with Dr. Seuss sculpture in background

(Theodor Seuss Geisel "Dr. Seuss" lived in La Jolla)

Sammy at the UCSD Geisel Library

For multiple reasons I don't think Sammy will choose UCSD, however, the tour was great and afterwards we took Sammy on a drive around San Diego and showed him where we used to live/work/go to school. Michael also introduced Sammy to his favorite: Nico's tacos.

Our Spring Break College Tours continued on Wednesday in Claremont, California. The Claremont Schools (a five school consortium including Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, Pomona, Harvey Mudd and Scripps) are very popular with Catlin Gabel graduates. Sammy really enjoyed the tour of Claremont McKenna and I really enjoyed it because we were joined by actor James Remar... a.k.a. Harry Morgan (Dexter's adoptive Dad on Dexter) and Richard the Tycoon (Samantha's on again, off again boyfriend) in Sex and the City. Now, I am not exactly star struck (unless we are talking pro men's tennis players), but these college tours can get pretty boring. Convincing Sammy that indeed we were taking a college tour with Dexter's dead Dad (and his real life family) was actually quite fun.

(Biology building in the background on the left. This is where Sammy would spend a lot of his time if he ended up at a Claremont School)

After Claremont McKenna, we headed over to Occidental College. "Harry Morgan" was there too. This is not uncommon when you are on a college tour track... even if the colleges are miles away from each other, you often run into the same people. Sammy also really liked Occidental. Living in LA for college would probably be pretty fun. We'll see what happens.

That was the end of our Spring Break College tours. If I learned anything from Joey's college search: you do not have to run around like a crazy person visiting 9 colleges in 4 days. Joey ended up actually applying to only 2 of the 9 colleges we visited and attending a college that was not even on our trip.

Let the games begin!

A Spring Treat

2011-03-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

I have this obsession with professional tennis. Well, specifically professional Men's Tennis. This year we got to go to the Indian Wells PNB Paribas Open near Palm Springs. I cannot even begin to describe how excited I was. It was awesome.

During the day we sat up in the Loge seats, which are high up, but still fun. The sun was beating down. We got lots of needed sunshine and Vitamin D. I actually never thought I would say I "needed" to get sun, but since I am chronically Vitamin D deficient and the doctor actually prescribed a little sunshine (along with a boat load of Vitamin D supplements), I gave myself permission to just sit and soak up sunshine (constantly slathering myself with SPF 50 sun screen of course.)

In the evenings, we got to sit in the 8th row as Lindy & Stuart do not go to the evening matches and they graciously gave up their seats to us. We saw Nadal beat Karlovic and we were close enough to witness the Rafa snarl every time Karlovic aced him. Fun!

We got to see Federer/Wawrinka v. Nadal/Lopez doubles. Federer and Nadal rarely play doubles, so this was a real treat.

But the highlight of the experience was sitting in the front row when Federer/Wawrinka played in the doubles final. They lost, but who cares when you are 10 feet from Roger Federer.

So many times I wished I had my "real" camera, but I only had the iphone.

I love tennis!

Home Canned Tomato Sauce: It's A Good Thing

2011-02-08T13:42:00.000-08:00

Home Canned Tomato Sauce

This was the first year that I really tried my hand at canning. The canning party at the farm got me excited and gave me the basic knowledge to get started. I gathered everything I needed at a farm store on Sauvie Island (except canning tongs--they were all out and those things really are mandatory for a smooth canning experience--next year). I grabbed jars (a few sizes), extra lids (for the jars I already had at home), two canning pots (racks included), a large funnel, labels and a very large canning ladle, plus extra fruit to subsidize what I already had from the garden.

I canned a couple of fruit sauces. They were meant to be jams, but did not have enough natural pectin, so ended up sauces. At first I was frustrated that they didn't set better, however, the result was the same fruity deliciousness as jam. The tri-berry sauce (strawberry, blackberry, blueberry) has been great on pancakes, waffles, toast, muffins and ice cream. Same with the peach sauce. I love having enough to give away too. People seem to really like it. I sent some to Joey at college.

But I think the best advice I was given was to can all the extra tomatoes we had on hand. We had tomatoes from our own garden, lots of them. Then we were getting additional tomatoes from the farm each week, lots of them. We ended up with tomatoes taking over the kitchen... on the counters, the table, the window sill. At the farm, they can something like 75 large jars of tomatoes each year.

It is so easy to can tomatoes. At the farm, they just take cookie sheets and cover them with the fresh tomatoes. Top with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast them in the oven on 375 degrees until cooked through... I never really kept track, but I probably roasted them for 45-60 minutes. After roasting all you have to do is blend them. I just poured the tomatoes into a large pot and used the immersion blender. I did all this in batches as we had tons of tomatoes. You could also just plop them into a regular blender and blend away. I did not skin or seed them, just blended them. How easy is that?

At the farm, they actually do the water bath version of canning (which I had done for the jams/sauces), but I was just too burnt out to go to that trouble, so I decided to freeze the tomato sauce. I carefully poured the tomato sauce into the wide mouth jars. They must be wide mouth jars for the freezer. Do not fill all the way to the top because in the freezing process the sauce will expand (I know, kind of seems counter intuitive, but the solid form turns out to be a little more volume than the liquid form.) Let the sauce completely cool before putting lids on (either in or out of the jar). Once completely cool, put the lids and labels on. I ended up with 25 jars of tomato sauce in varying sizes.

The best part: whenever you need tomato sauce for anything, you just go to your freezer. Homemade tomato sauce is like no other. When you use it in recipes you can add whatever spices you want. I have used our frozen canned tomato sauce for: lasagna, pasta sauces, indian sauces, spicy homemade tomato ketchup and most recently in chili for Super Bowl.

It's a good thing.

The pitiable "Cone of Shame"

2011-02-08T12:39:00.000-08:00

Continuing the SAT study month theme (I seem to be stuck in the p's):

Pitiable

Deserving or inciting pity; "a hapless victim"; Lily is pitiable in her post surgery state.

Have you ever seen the Disney film "Up"?

If not, you must see it. It is a cartoon, a really great cartoon. We watched it last year as a family. The first cartoon we had watched as a family since the boys were little. It's a masterpiece of the animated variety.

Anyway, Lily the golden retriever loved it. Although she was a little scared, okay a lot scared, of the pack of dogs when they were being mean. She LOVED Doug the golden retriever... "squirrel".

Here is a picture of Doug with his "Cone of Shame"

Here is a picture of Lily in her "Cone of Shame"

She is very pitiable. So Lily's story goes like this...

She had a couple of nasty bumps. One was on her back, right where people like to pet her. She has had it for about a year and a half. We had it tested a while back and although it was benign (also known as a sebaceous cyst), it was growing.

Then she got a bump on her neck, right where people like to pet her (running theme). She had that one for about a year and it stayed about the size of a pea, until a couple months ago when it started growing.

Well, the bumps seemed to be bothering everyone (except for Lily). So we decided to have them removed. They turned out to be deeper than the doctor had first anticipated, leaving Lily with rather large post surgery wounds. Lily first came home without the cone of shame and instead was wearing a fashionable t-shirt, but she would not stop scratching at the neck wound (it looks pretty ugly so I will spare everyone the photos).

Here is the wound on her back:

Anyway, she has been wearing the Cone of Shame for about a week now. She still bumps into everything with it. She has taken to scraping the skin off my legs with it (okay, yeah, I realize long pants would solve that problem). She jumps on the bed and rests her Cone of Shame on my lap and stares at me really pathetic like. She has been without doggie daycare and without a bath for 14 days. Tomorrow she gets her stitches out. I think we are all hoping to be rid of the Cone of Shame.

And in case anyone is wondering whether the surgery was absolutely necessary, the answer is no. And I would not do it again. Even if the bumps grow and burst (which can happen), we will just let that happen and deal with it. This surgery stuff is for the birds.

Pertinacity

2011-02-07T13:31:00.000-08:00

Pertinacity:

Persistent determination, the quality of being determined to do or achieve something; firmness of purpose. Sammy showed pertinacity during the entire 2010/2011 basketball season.

(Sammy is going to take the SAT's this Spring and we are trying to help him out with his vocabulary. :)

Sammy has been playing sports basically his whole life. His first word was ball, followed very closely by the word blue. Since four years old, Sammy has played soccer, baseball, golf and tennis. He started football in 3rd grade and started playing basketball a little later, at maybe 10 years old (on a team.) Of course he had a little basketball hoop at age two and then a bigger basketball hoop at four. Our neighbors were kind enough to leave their big basketball hoop up in their driveway for years after their kids were grown and done using it... probably because they felt sorry for us since we have no driveway.

This is Sammy's third season playing basketball for his small private school, Catlin Gabel. Playing basketball at Catlin has been a rough road for Sammy. No school or program is perfect and we understand that. Sammy having the opportunity to play all the sports he wants is, in fact, a big plus in our minds. Catlin has a no-cut, everyone plays policy. Unfortunately, the Catlin basketball coaches seem to have a bit of a hard time following the rules and maintaining their objectivity. Even though this is a small private school that nurtures the individual spirit and touts respect, some of the basketball coaches have a hard time understanding and practicing this... or maybe no one told them? I am not big on the win at ALL costs mentality.

Sammy's Freshman year he sat on the JV bench most of the time (they only had enough kids for Varsity and JV). The coach said Sammy was not fast enough (don't get me started...) Last year Sammy played down at JV2 and had an awesome year playing for an awesome coach (and was surprisingly fast). He got tons of deserved play time. But, the other coaches ran that really good coach away (I'm talking really good coach). This year, they again have three teams. Sammy was chosen for the JV team. We all quickly realized that the JV team was the "Bad News Bears" of Catlin Basketball. The Varsity team got the best players (at least by the coach's standards) and as well they should. JV2 actually got a really great group of Freshman with aspirations of playing Varsity (in this private school setting, not all kids have aspirations of playing Varsity--I just thought I would throw that out there.) The JV team got all the Juniors and Sophomores that did not make Varsity (partly due to the fact that they did not play basketball during the off season, many of the kids, like Sammy, have other things in their life besides basketball.) The JV team also got all the other weak players (many of them Freshmen). Boys who had never played basketball, boys just out for a PE credit, and what the coaches like to call boys in need of "skill building." What transpired after that was complete fiasco. Leaving the Varsity team's success, or lack thereof, out of this, the JV2 team has been slaughtering their opponents by sometimes 30-40 points. Now if anyone out there actually watches high school basketball, even scoring 40 points can be difficult, but to squash your opponent game after game by that many points is actually quite astounding (and also goes to show that the other teams put their better players on their JV team.) On the other hand, the JV team started the season by losing by the same amount of points (or dare I say, more.) So, what would a sensible basketball program do? I am thinking everyone out there is going to react like me... why would you not switch out the better JV2 players for the weaker JV players? I guess because that would make sense? But since the Catlin Gabel Boys Basketball program does not make any sense (in my opinion), they did not do that. UNTIL... they lost more than half the JV team (for various reasons). Sammy and his buddy Ian did quit for a game--out of protest, but of course that fell on deaf ears. Since the boys really love basketball and we really wanted them playing basketball instead of doing other less savory extra-curricular activities, they returned to play out the season. Oh, and another option the coaches had, that all other teams in their league participate in, swinging down Varsity players that don't get much play time in the Varsity games. After about a bazillion emails by me and some heated conversations with staff (that apparently do not like me very much), they finally swung a couple Varsity players. Now that the Varsity team has a half dozen injuries and Sammy's team was down to about 5 consistent players, they finally moved a bunch of the JV2 team up to JV. Why? Because the JV2 season is basically over. Thanks guys. Way to go. Does this really count as better late than never?

Anyway, I have vented enough frustration here.

In the end we are very proud of Sammy for rejoining the team and sticking it out. We love watching basketball and we love watching Sammy play basketball. We have been to almost every game this season, even away games. Sammy has played quite hard and attempted (sometimes not so successfully) to keep a positive attitude even when his team loses by 40 (or dare I say more) points.

Above: Sammy get your mind together, the game is about to start.

Above: Practice before the game. Sammy is a pretty decent ball handler

Above: Tips from the coach (Sammy's coach does his best with what he is given)

Above: Sammy is a great rebounder

Above: Sammy is pretty darn good at drawing the foul when he drives to the basket. We wish he did it more often.

Above: I love their bright blue away uniforms (I know this is a silly Mom thing.)

Above: Ooh, Sammy takes some big elbow hits and a lot of other hits that don't get called, but that is basketball.

Above: Sammy is an awesome free throw shooter.

Above: Sammy always gets the ball into play.

Above: Sammy can be a leader and direct his teammates, when he speaks up.

We are proud of Sam! And seriously, we cannot believe he is approaching 5'11", that is nearly unheard of in our family!

Only the Good Times...

2011-01-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

It has been an interesting year.

I had really high hopes for 2010. It just had a nice ring to it. Ever since the kids started school, Joey has been in the class of 2010 and Sammy the class of 2012. I think I had been waiting for 2010, anticipating the most wonderful year. Then 2010 brought illness and death and a really weird battle with Lily's doggie daycare? Okay, maybe that last one should not really make my really bad list, but I have cursed 2010 more than a few times.

I haven't written in my blog for a while, or read any blogs for a while. I haven't taken any pictures for a while. Actually, the last few months have been difficult. I like to do a good-bye to the old year, hello to the new year post. This year I have been dreading this post. I thought perhaps I would not do an end of year post. Or any more posts. But then I thought, what the heck. My life has not come to an end.

Instead, I am just going to list out all the wonderful and enjoyable things about 2010. All the things I am really really thankful for--things that made me happy. That's it. Here goes (in chronological order, sort of):

Joey's PNCA art awards • A recuperative trip to Bainbridge Island with Michael and Lily • Watching Joey and Sammy head out to their "Sadie Hawkin's Style Winter Formal" • Sammy's Basketball Games • New changes at work that made my life a whole lot easier • The excitement of harvesting chard, kale, onions & garlic from our winter garden • Visiting Boston & Maine with Joey • Making all kinds of delicious recipes with our CSA harvests • A fun trip to Las Vegas with the Lubitz Family • Sammy's Baseball Games • Sharing in the JOY of Joey's college decision • Visiting the La Finquita del Buho farm every week • Joey's graduation from 13 years of Temple Beth Israel Religious School • Finally getting Nana's '66 T-Bird back from the mechanic • Joey's prom, high school graduation & all-night party • Welcoming Michael home from his many domestic and International business trips • Bringing home Sammy's beautiful bench he made for me in wood shop • STRAIGHT hair! • Planting our raspberry and strawberry beds • LA Trip celebrating our 21st Anniversary • Seeing Aunt Amy after all these years • Camping with the Godseys • A fantastic trip to New Orleans, Savannah & Charleston • Being happy about leaving Joey in Oberlin (it just felt right) • Welcoming Sammy home from his 5th trip to Japan (we missed him so) • The great farm canning party • Grammy & Grampy's 40th anniversary party • Michael's birthday trip to Kauai • and finally, welcoming Joey home after 111 days away!

Now that is a lot to be happy about!

It seems my family, the farm and travel are really pretty darn important to me, but I actually knew that without doing this post.

Welcome 2011, I've been waiting for you....

The Power of Music

2010-11-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

Sitting here at my computer, working, I have my itunes cranked up and it is randomly selecting songs for my listening pleasure.

The power of music is incredible. A song can literally take my mind to another place and time or vividly bring to life feelings that I thought had no life left.

Every time The Beatles' "Revolution" plays it takes me back to my childhood. It was my first 45 single. I loved that little 45 with the green apple. On the A-side was "Hey Jude", but I fell in love with the B-side, "Revolution". "We all want to change the world" Right? "But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out." Yes, of course. "Revolution" and "Let It Be" are my all-time favorite Beatles songs.

Speaking of Beatles, Paul McCartney & Wings, "Band on the Run" transports me to our front yard on NE Royal Ct. in Laurelhurst where I would spend warm Sunday mornings on the grass listening to Casey Kasem's America's Top 40 on the transistor radio. "Well, the rain exploded with a mighty crash as we fell into the sun."

I cannot possibly hear Prince's "Little Red Corvette" without thinking of sitting on my bed studying at Manzanita dorm my Freshman year at ASU. The music video to "Little Red Corvette" used to play regularly on MTV and I watched it on the big screen at Dash Inn Cantina. Anyone that went to ASU in the 80's knows Dash Inn, a dive Mexican food place (sorta, but most people did not really go there to eat) in Tempe across from Arizona State. Sadly I think it was torn down, just like Michael's fraternity where I used to dance regularly to Prince.

This one may seem a little out of place, but the memories cannot be denied. I really like the Soundtrack to Disney's The Little Mermaid. I used to listen to the songs on the stereo when I was pregnant with Joey in 1991, especially "Part of Your World". When Joey was an infant, he had colic, but The Little Mermaid CD always calmed him down. I guess it is true what they say about babies being able to hear from inside the womb.

Queen and "We are the Champions" was a hit single when I was in High School. It used to remind me of High School, but now it reminds me of Sammy and the part of his Bar Mitzvah video where I highlight his years playing sports, especially his five years playing youth football. "I've had my share of sand kicked in my face - but I've come through." Sammy will always by my champion. I LOVE Queen!

And finally, there is R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts"... a song that always, without hesitation, for the past six years or so, has made me think of Michael's Brother, David. Today is the six month anniversary of the day David decided to end his life. It is still so incredibly painful for everyone that knew him.

"When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on
Don't let yourself go, 'cause everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes...

If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on... "

I cherish the power of music. Sometimes it makes me feel sad, sometimes happy, but mostly it just makes me feel.

Something's Fishy...

2010-11-13T16:03:00.000-08:00

I knew my water was tasting a little funny lately... Oh, Chloe!

Mesmerized by the Beauty

2010-11-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

Mesmerized by the beauty of the Fall colors in our yard on another gorgeous sunny Portland day.

(with the Macro Lens)

Crabapple

Japanese Maple

Lace Leaf Japanese Maple

Japanese Maple

Red Japanese Maple

Lace Leaf Japanese Maple

Unripe Fig

Ripe Fig

Hydrangeas turn dusty colors when the temp changes

Dogwood

Fuchsia Buds

Asparagus

One Lone Echinacea left in the yard

Blueberry Bush

Aloha nui loa Kaua'i

2010-11-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

Purely for my own entertainment, I have decided to add a grading system to my food/restaurant reviews. As promised, here is an accounting of our latest food journey on the island of Kauai. It is mostly in chronological order, not in order of favorites.

We hit some great places and some not so great places and we missed some of both as well, I am sure. We shall return.

A = Excellent

B = Good to Very Good

C = Mediocre

D = I wouldn't go there if I was you, and we shouldn't have gone there either!

Each restaurant will be graded on

1) View. 2) Atmosphere. 3) Overall Food.

Oh, and disclaimer here... no breakfast reviews. We opted to go to the grocery store the first night and pick up some fresh fruit, homemade English Muffins, Greek Yogurt, Kashi cereal and milk ($7/quart milk... YIKES!!!, but it did last the whole week). Food is very expensive in Hawaii but since we didn't plan on getting up early, and there was no restaurant on property, it worked for us.

We started our journey right at our timeshare, Marriott's Waiohai Beach Club. This timeshare does not have a "real" restaurant. It has a Marketplace with food to go and the Beach Front bar, which basically carries the same food as the Marketplace Grill. After arriving and settling in to our unit, we ventured down to the beach and then watched the sunset from the Honu Bar.

We shared a pupu platter and a fish sandwich. The pupu platter included some delicious pulled kalua pork sliders on taro buns, beef skewers, & BBQ'd short ribs. Sliders were excellent, other pupus were mediocre. The fresh catch (Ono) Sandwich was delicious although they do not serve the food on plates with regular silverware. They serve you out of to-go containers with plastic silverware, which is not very nice. We also shared a Pina Colada Smoothie, which was very good. On another day we shared Kalua pulled pork Nachos. They were a little hard to eat and very greasy.

Honu Bar

View: A

Atmosphere: C

(although it is on the beach, it is not a restaurant and the to-go containers are a bummer)

Food Overall: B-

Advice: Stick with smoothies or Fresh Catch options.

Above: surfers at Poipu, Sunset

Yummy Smoothie:

Monday we traveled North to Hanalei:

We sort of made the mistake of just stopping and going in to the first restaurant we found. The name of the restaurant was Bouchon's and it had a great view and a decent looking menu. Something we decided once we were already in the restaurant--> don't bother looking at the reviews unless you plan on walking out, or it might possibly sway your food order. I waited until after we left to read the reviews, which were mediocre. Michael ordered the Hanalei Burger (Teriyaki Burger), which was over priced at $11, no sides or fries included. Nothing special. I ordered the Baja Style Fish Tacos (Mahi Mahi that day) with Jalapeno infused Sour Cream. Yum! It was 15 bucks but it was fresh and it was delicious. We could have shared it. In fact I did give one of the tacos to Michael and still had more than enough food.

Bouchon's

View: B (Mountain Range View)

Atmosphere: B-

Food: B

Advice: We heard their "Famous" Mai-Tai is pretty darn good.

Bouchon's Fresh Fish Tacos:

We really enjoyed the fact that the timeshare is in the Poipu area of Kauai. There are so many great shopping and restaurant options. Later Monday evening, we were checking out the local town and happened upon Pizzetta, and it smelled awesome. Historic Old Koloa Town is only a couple miles from the timeshare and the shops and restaurants are quaint and cute. I fell in love with Island Soap Works. Anyway, we ordered a pizza to go from Pizzetta. I can't really rate the restaurant, but I would give the pizza a solid B+. Delicious sauce, but as with most pizzas, probably best eaten right in the restaurant. The crust wasn't really crispy enough.

Another convenient shopping area near Poipu (even closer than Koloa Town) is the new Kukui'ula Village. We frequented this shopping center. It had a handy high-end market (Living Foods Market & Cafe). There was also a Bubba Burger, which we had to try:

Everything was great about Bubba Burger except, for me, the meat was not ground well enough. I know that sounds weird, but I don't want to go into it here. The meat was locally grown, so that was a good thing. Not exactly In-n-Out, but better than most fast food burgers.

Bubba Burger, Kukui'ula Shopping Village

View: C

Atmosphere: B (Nice porch with tables)

Food: B

Another restaurant we frequented at Kukui'ula Shopping Village was Merriman's Downstairs. Merriman's has a fancy restaurant upstairs, which got high marks from internet commenters, but we were saving the big money for a couple of other restaurants, so we opted for the less expensive, less liked Downstairs cafe. We ate a dinner and a lunch at the Cafe. The menu is the same all day. When all was said and done, we had sampled the Pineapple Glazed Chicken Wings, the Island style Fish Tacos, The Grilled Fresh Catch of the Day Sandwich and the Pesto & Goat Cheese Flatbread. It was all very very good.

Merriman's Downstairs

View: B

(mostly interior courtyard of the lushly landscaped shopping village, but also a peek-a-boo view of the ocean to the South)

Atmosphere: B

Food: B+

Above: Merriman's Downstairs Cafe is bottom floor on the right side of this pretty yellow building.

We had an early dinner at Keoki's Paradise one evening. Michael had Fish and Chips, I had fresh fish sandwich (running theme because generally speaking they were all very good... what's better than fresh Hawaiian fish). From our experience, there is nothing special about Keoki's food, and the prices, like the rest of Kauai, are high.

Below: Keoki's Paradise at Poipu Shopping Village

Keoki's Paradise:

View: B (lushly landscaped, but actually located right on Poipu Road)

Atmosphere: B+ (a little over the top themed, but nice)

Food: B-

Above is the view of Poipu Beach from Brennecke's Beach Broiler and we're sorry to say, the view is really all they've got going for them.

Brennecke's Beach Broiler

View: A

Atmosphere: C

Food: C

Below: Josselin's Tapas Bar & Grill at Kukui'ula Shopping Village, Koloa Town

I just have to say everything about this place is amazing. Well, it really has no view to speak of, but everything else is amazing. The home baked breads and olive oil. Amazing!

The beef brisket filled bao were delicious...

The seared duck breast salad with mizuna, avocado, pineapple, candied pecan and goat cheese filled biscuit was wonderful:

The Poached Oxtail Ravioli with Vietnamese "Pho" Broth was superb:

And we had a couple of other dishes. Either I did not take a picture, or the picture didn't turn out. The lighting was extremely difficult to work with, but the food was so good. We also had Wood Oven Naan Bread with Yogurt Cucumber Dressing and Eggplant Dip and a fabulous braised short rib stew served in a little cast iron pot. Our waiter was the best all week. We wish we had had the time and money to go back to this restaurant again.

Josselin's Tapas Bar and Grill

View: C

Atmosphere: A (they had the comfiest sofa style seating)

Food: A

We took a little drive one day looking for some local-style plate lunch grub. Michael lived in Honolulu for a summer when he was in college and he loved the hamburger steak with dark brown gravy served on white rice. Modified Loco-Moco, because he doesn't go for the egg. I had read a little about Hanapepe town, about a 20 minute drive from our timeshare. Bobbie's Restaurant in Hanapepe had some great reviews. We stopped in and were a little overwhelmed by the choices. The place is VERY modest with menus all over the wall. They had just about every Hawaiian lunch special you could dream of and then about a dozen bento lunch specials, which were combinations of everything on the menu + more. Hindsight being what it is, I should have stuck with the local fresh fish special, Ahi with lemon sauce... but that didn't sound all that exciting so I went for the Bento Special #2 (I think it was). It included: Korean Style Chicken Stir Fry, Fried Saimin, Hawaiian macaroni salad (basically macaroni and a boat load of mayo) and then an extremely rich pulled pork covered in gravy. Yeah, even while I am typing this I am feeling a little queasy. Michael went for the rice, hamburger steak and gravy. Michael's came with macaroni salad also (not expressly stated on the menu), which he would not touch. He probably even resented it being on his plate. The chicken, although very tasty, was stir fried in a sweet glaze and then deep fried. When the plates arrived, there was, no joke, enough food on our plates to feed at least 6 people, at least! My food was way too rich. I ate maybe 1/10 of it and then I was sick for the rest of the day. I mean, I can pack in some rich food, but this was rich food that my stomach had never seen before. Michael's gravy was way too light for his liking, it looked more like chicken gravy. All in all, for us, Bobbie's was a bust. Hanapepe town itself kind of looked like a little old Hawaiian ghost town filled with art galleries. We hightailed it out of there, more than a little embarrassed that we had waisted so much food. No pictures--be happy about that :)!

Bobbie's Restaurant, Hanapepe Town

View: D

Atmosphere: C-

Food: D (this is very biased, I realize, but man, I was sick for the rest of the day)

Advice: Next Time we will try the little lunch shack at Sueoka's Grocery Store in Koloa Town for Hawaiian style plate lunch. The food looked great, the people seemed happy and the prices were the best we had seen on the island. Great reviews on the web as well. By the time we realized our mistake at not going here, it was too late. We did not want to ruin our dinner appetites for the next two restaurants.

When we were staying at the Marriott Waiohai Timeshare with the kids about five years ago, we tried Roy's Restaurant for the first time. It was a lavish dinner for our family since our kids do not eat from children's menus and Roy's can be expensive. Actually Sammy has not eaten from a children's menu since he was about five and Joey never would eat from the children's menu because he did not prefer the substandard cuisine and dishes mostly made with melted cheese, which he does not like. Yes, welcome to the world of Joey. Anyway, I digress. We took the kids to Roy's and Joey ordered the small plate of one of the most amazing dishes I have ever eaten (yes, everyone had to have a bite of Joey's food): Roy's Hawaiian Style Misoyaki Butterfish.

When Michael and I planned to dine at Roy's, we already knew what we were going to order. We ordered their amazing crab cake appetizer:

their amazing misoyaki butterfish:

A salad, because at some point you have to have your greens...

And the decadent Melting Chocolate Souffle Cake:

Roy's Restaurant, Poipu Shopping Village

View: C (its in a shopping "village", you don't go there for the view)

Atmosphere: B- (just okay)

Food: A (dare I add a plus to this?) yes... A+

And finally, the reason we went to Hawaii in the first place: Michael's Birthday and so, Michael's Birthday Dinner. We knew the food was not going to be up to the lusciousness of Roy's or even maybe some other restaurants in the area (that we didn't have time to try because we were only there for seven short days), but we went here for the romantic view and that is what we got...

Sunset at The Beach House Restaurant:

We enjoyed the Crispy Crab Stuffed Ahi Roll with Soy-Wasabi Vinaigrette:

(This is only half of the dish because by the time I remembered to take a picture, Michael had already eaten his half)

I was getting ever so slightly bored with fresh caught Hawaiian fish (I know, I know, I am so so stupid) so I ordered the Oven Roasted Breast of Chicken Stuffed with Wild Mushrooms and Gorgonzola, Fresh Kaua'i Herb Polenta Cake and Port Wine Demi Glace (which was just okay):

But Michael ordered the House Specialty Macadamia Buttered Local Fresh Fish (Mahi Mahi) with Citrus Aka Miso Beurre Blanc and it was, yes, amazing. That sauce IS as good as it looks:

We ordered the very odd, but very tasty dessert special of the night (since it was Michael's Birthday). It was a starfish shaped pastry filled with chocolate and macadamia nut mousse. It was good, kind of like a fancy cream puff:

The Beach House

View: A+

Atmosphere: A-

Food: B+

And this marathon post has come to an end.

Election Day Memories

2010-11-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful Election Day afternoon it has turned out to be here in Portland. The promised sunshine is here, shining brightly on all the beautiful leaves, red, yellow, orange--gorgeous. Mt. Hood looks so majestic against the blue sky, still holding on to a good deal of the snow from last week even though it is better than 60 degrees down here in the city. Today is also my Mom's birthday. I am so glad it turned out nice.

Ahhh, Election Day. Some good memories, some bad. I remember our high school mock election Fall of my senior year when Jimmy Carter lost miserably to Ronald Reagan. I love Jimmy Carter. I loved him then and I love him now. He is a forward thinking, ethical man. I was sad I was unable to vote. I wanted my vote counted on the side of Jimmy Carter. I recently watched a CBS 60 minutes Lesley Stahl interview with Jimmy Carter--it made me smile. There is also an episode of Paula Deen's Food Network Show where Paula travels to good ole Plains, Georgia. They make a meal in the Carter's modest kitchen and Paula, Jimmy & Rosalyn sit down in front of the TV and eat their meal on TV trays. I love America. Anyway, this post is not a political commentary, nor a platform for my Jimmy Carter love fest.

My election day memories are not political at all, actually. When I was a child, Aunt Babe (George's Sister, Marie) used to coordinate the efforts for their local polling center near 33rd & Alberta. Mom used to be one of her volunteers. Inevitably my Sister Tiff would get sick or injured in some way on Election Day. Mom's back-up babysitter was always Aunt Babe and Election Day took them both out of action. One especially rough Election Day, Tiff and I were both at Laurelhurst Elementary School. I was probably in 6th grade and Tiff in 1st. Her class had been playing on the playground for afternoon recess. They were playing a game of Red Rover... you know, "Red Rover Red Rover, send Tiffany right over." Somehow, and don't ask me how, Tiffany ran smack into the tether ball pole. Ouch! She was down and out for the count. She ended up being mostly fine, but she did throw up on the way home.

Sometimes Dad would take us over to the voting center and we would deliver dinner to the volunteers. It was exciting watching all the people lined up and then it was kind of mysterious how they stepped in behind the curtain to cast their ballots. When I was old enough, I volunteered there as well. It felt like I was making a difference by helping out on Election Day. Of course the time of polling booths and voting at the local library or bank or community center is gone here in Oregon. We are 100% mail in ballot only. There's really no mystery in that. But it was fun while it lasted. Maybe that is why I always procrastinate until Election Day to fill out my ballot... and run over to our local drop box at A-Boy just before 8pm, so I can feel some of the excitement. Or maybe I am just a procrastinator :).

Not enough time...

2010-10-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

That is what we both kept saying when we had to leave Kauai... we just did not have enough time there. What a beautiful island. What a wonderful escape. Every year on Michael's birthday I plan a little get away. This year I was able to schedule a budget friendly trip to Hawaii. We used a "free" timeshare week. We used mostly points to purchase the airline tickets. We got a super cheap Hotwire car rental ($15/day) and we did not spend any money on tours or excursions. We enjoyed driving around the island, exploring beaches, driving to the top of canyons, relaxing by the beach/pool reading books, and eating great food--mostly fresh fish sandwiches and fresh fish tacos.

Above is the view from our timeshare unit. When we checked in, we were assigned a not so desirable location on the property with a view mostly of a parking lot and then if you stretched out around the balcony, you could see the Ocean at Poipu Park. I asked for a different room. They stated that they had no ocean front rooms on the property (which is not exactly true since we had one the last time we stayed there) and that all ocean view rooms were taken. When we stay at our timeshare at Ko Olina on Oahu, we are guaranteed ocean view. That is what we paid for. Once you trade in your timeshare unit, however, all bets are off. I asked if there were any rooms with views of the courtyard. There was one. We took it. It was on the fourth floor and had a wonderful view of the entire courtyard plus the ocean in the distance.

Below is a view looking down into the courtyard. You can see one of the spas by the umbrella. It was generally very quiet down at our end of the building.

Right after we got settled into our room, we headed down to the beach. This timeshare, Marriott's Waiohai Beach Club, is on a great little stretch of Poipu Beach. There is surfing, snorkeling, a little protected beach perfect for small children that has no waves or undertoe and then a great boogie boarding/body surfing beach. Something for everyone.

Below is the view from our beach chairs taken with my iphone.

Michael tried to get a picture of both of us on the beach using my iphone. Below is his first try.

This photo is really the only one where both of our faces are in the picture AND the ocean is actually in the picture too.

Below is a shot back towards the beach bar. The surfers were all over to the left, but so was the sun. There were 25-30+ surfers at Poipu Beach at all times of the day.

Above, I took a picture straight at the sun. I don't really think this is good for the camera or my eyes. I probably won't do it again.

On Monday we decided to take a drive to the Northern most point of the island. At least that you can drive to.

Below is Waikoko beach just around the corner from Hanalei Bay. It was completely deserted.

and had a great view back towards Hanalei Bay and Princeville.

We continued heading North and stopped at beautiful Lumahai Beach

Looking back behind Michael at the mountains reminds me a lot of Japan.

Green water flows in along the North side.

The beach is gorgeous, but the surf is rough.

Below: I just love these beach trees.

Rough Surf.

We drove to the end of the road to Haena Beach Park where there are tunnels and hiking trails and so many people that it just didn't seem like a terribly tranquil place to spend any time.

On our way back home, we stopped in Hanalei town for a smoothie. A really good smoothie.

Since "we" (Michael) had driven so much on Monday, we decided to stay close to home for a couple days. We did venture out to visit some of the areas close by including our favorite little Koloa Town only a couple miles from the timeshare. We also visited Hanapepe.

On Friday we decided to get back in the car and drive to the top of Waimea, "The Grand Canyon of Hawaii". It is beautiful.

Below, you can see the ocean in the distant background:

We took the road to the very top and walked up to the lookout where on a clear day you can see the Napali Coast. This is what we saw:

But this is what we could have seen (and on another day, we will!):

Kauai's favorite bird, The Rooster. There are so many chickens and roosters running around Kauai it is crazy. They are EVERYWHERE! Including standing next to you while you are drinking a Mai Tai smoothie at the beach front bar :)!

On our final day in Kauai, we sat in the shade of palm trees by the pool and read books.

and Michael wanted to take one more dip in the ocean and I forgot to put on the sunscreen. Below is what I looked like after. I am still itching like crazy.

I know what some people are thinking... I didn't include any food in my post and that is because... I am going to do a whole post on the food. Yippee!

40th Anniversary Photos

2010-10-04T13:38:00.000-07:00

Judy and George celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary on September 19, 2010. We had a little party for them last Saturday. They requested family only for this casual party, well + one dear friend. We were missing a few key family members, however, we partied on anyway.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

We started the party at a nice decent 2:00pm in the afternoon...

The gorgeous flowers were from More and More Flowers, thanks to a Facebook high school reconnection:

We also enjoyed delicious appetizers from Eat Your Heart Out Catering:

Mini Roast Beef and Horseradish Sandwiches

Crab Gougeres

Stuffed New Potatoes with Sour Cream, Olives & Sundried Tomatoes

Shrimp in Phyllo

Oregon Pear & Gorgonzola Bruschetta

The two-tiered Beaverton Bakery Cake was so pretty (and delicious)!

Some of the guests (Jeannie & Tawnjia) brought their really really cute disney purses. They got them this past summer at Disneyland. I want one!

The weather was perfect and the deck turned in to the most popular spot:

Danny

Danny, Uncle Bob, Norm, Dad & Tawnjia

Kathleen & Jeannie

Lisa

Tawnjia

Norm

Uncle Bob

Cake Time!:

Sammy gets the first piece?

Sammy and Michael

Dad enjoying his cake!

Our present was a watercolor painting of Riley painted by a local Salem artist.

Actually, Riley wasn't feeling all that well that day:

Chris and Akiko got Mom and Dad a gorgeous Ruby colored bowl from Tiffany:

(we actually put some rose petals in it, but shhhh, don't tell Chris)

A book from Aunt Sharon & Uncle Bob:

Mom and Aunt Sharon

I took group photos as the guests left... of course Sammy was the first to head out. Why am I not surprised!

Actually this is my favorite photo, but my camera started going haywire with the lighting and focus so the quality isn't great, but I still love it. I should have taken the photos outside, but hey, hindsight is always 20/20.

Grampy, Grammy, Aunt Tiffy & Sammy

Aunt Tiffy and Grammy

Tawnjia, Jeannie, Dad, Mom

Aunt Sharon, Mom, Dad, Uncle Bob

Peter, Kathleen, Lisa

Kathleen, Lisa, Dad & Mom

(oh no, I think I was fiddling around with my camera too long, everyone except Kathleen looks like they are getting a little frustrated)

I had to kick on the flash, Norm & Peter (Peter always has an interesting expression)

Dad, Mom & Norm

Michael and I closed out the joint at about 9:30pm, no pictures of me, of course--just the way I like it :)!

I just decided this.

2010-09-24T13:18:00.000-07:00

I just decided that for our 23rd Wedding Anniversary (approximately 1 year and 10 months from now) we are going to Bora Bora. I know, right? What is the big deal about a 23rd wedding anniversary? Well nothing other than the fact that we can't afford to go next year and we have already booked our timeshare for Hawaii for next year anyway. I have to start saving my pennies (pennies are all that is left over after paying all this school tuition).

As I sit here in my sweatshirt and jeans... I am still cold. I refuse to turn the heat on and I have all the windows open for some fresh air--with three pets in our house that insist on being right next to me at all times--fresh air is a must. I am holding out for the 80 degree weather they keep promising, but every morning that 80 degree forecast seems to turn into a 60 degree actuality.

I have wanted to visit French Polynesia since I was 20 years old and in college at ASU. I worked for a commercial photographer who took photos for cruise line brochures. He also took photos of gorgeous luxury cars outside castles in Germany. And photos of luxury boats in Southern Bayous. Anyway, one of my jobs was sleeving all the negatives when he and his wife returned from these lavish all-expense-paid "working" trips to exotic locations. I remember sleeving hundreds of photos of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris... ah, some day. But right now, I have my heart set on Bora Bora.

and here is why:

yes, and this:

oh and yes, I have always wanted to stay in a hut over the water:

and swim with turtles:

They even have a Four Seasons Resort on Bora Bora. I have calculated everything out and if I start putting away $30 a day, every day until the week before our anniversary in 2012, I will have JUST enough. Hmmmm. I may need to rethink some of the particulars on this one. But I can dream!

Cherry Tomatoes

2010-09-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

We have so many cherry tomatoes we do not know what to do with them all. We love eating them fresh and in salads. Joey used some on a homemade focaccia bread last month. But we have at least three different varieties of these little guys and they do not seem to care that we have lost sunshine in Portland. We have harvested literally hundreds of cherry tomatoes. All the other larger tomato varieties are sitting there, green as can be. We may be making a lot of fried green tomato recipes here soon if the sun decides it is done for the season. Luckily we got some great fried green tomato recipes while we were dining our way through Savannah, Georgia. No, I have not given up on the sun, I am just trying to keep the glass half full thing going....

I decided I needed to get creative. I cut all the little tomatoes in half and put them seed side up on a cookie sheet.

Then I added diced onions, garlic, salt, pepper, fresh basil and topped the whole thing with olive oil:

I roasted everything in a 400 degree oven for about an hour. It is sweet and savory and delicious. We ate it warm on toast. Michael also put it on his bagel this morning. He said it might taste very good on a burger. I think he might be on to something.

Canning Party at the Farm

2010-09-05T14:12:00.000-07:00

One of the things we love most about our CSA Farm is that it is hands on. We volunteer out there, we pick up our share each week at the farm, and they have a number of parties throughout the season for all to enjoy. Lyn and Juvencio really want everyone to feel like they are a part of the farm (and family) and they especially want to educate city families about farm life, what it means to run a farm, and they even desire to share the many struggles they face.

Since the day we signed up at La Finquita del Buho (Little Farm of the Owl), I have been looking forward to the annual canning party. This year they had 24 families signed up to participate. I'm not sure the full 24 showed up, however, there were lots and lots of people ranging in age from 9 months to 80+ years.

Lyn and Juvencio have a beautiful farm house plus many greenhouses and outbuildings including the structure in the picture below, which looks like a garage, but is actually half ceramic studio, half extra kitchen. By my count, we had at least 14 burners of all types going most of the day. There were brines to boil, jams and sauces to cook, lids to sterilize, and lots of filled jars to bathe. There were also at least 4 ovens going at all times sterilizing the jars. The area outside the garage was for prepping ingredients as well as some cooking. Both kitchens were overflowing with people cleaning fruits and veggies, filling jars with both veggies and brines, cooking fruits, and cleaning utensils as we went.

Below, Juvencio is a great host. He always has a smile on his face.

Some people showed up early Saturday morning to pick the freshest fruits and veggies possible for canning day. There were constantly people out in the fields picking more fruits (apples and blackberries) and vegetables for recipes. I arrived at approximately 8:45a.m. and there were already a dozen people in the fields.

The apples were mostly picked by the older kids so they could use the old cider press to make the coveted apple cider.

The kids pressed cider almost non-stop. Everyone received a jar to take home even though Luna (Lyn and Juvencio's daughter) did not really want to give any of it away. She was gently reminded that if she didn't give it away, she was going to need to drink approximately 30 jars of cider in the next few days. After that it would spoil. She finally agreed to relinquish the cider.

Below Mary Kay, the canning diva:

A list of all the goodies we made:

Some of the recipes were tweaked a little and we ended up not making the homemade tomato ketchup. Frankly I think we just ran out of time and there were a couple of other tomato recipes going.

The pickling cucumbers were plentiful and looked beautiful.

There were so many supplies. We ended up with lots of leftover jars, lids and rims. I'm sure those will all be used for Lyn and Juvencio's own canned goods collection. As we were leaving they were starting on their 75 jars of roasted tomato sauce. Living on a farm also means being able to eat from the farm through the winter.

Below: Mary Kay and Lyn, the canning experts:

The pickles were the first done.

Additional apples were picked and washed...

to be used in the apple butter recipe (so delicious, it's basically a highly concentrated form of applesauce, produced by long, slow cooking of apples with cider).

Farm owners Lyn Jacobs and Juvencio Argueta

These ladies are very proud of their handpicked eggplants. Their preserved eggplant with olive oil recipe included numerous steps and looks absolutely delicious:

For some reason I did not get any pictures of the ladies making blackberry jam. I think it was a pretty quick process once they had gone out and picked all the berries in the brambling patch on the other side of the apple orchard. This extra jar of preserves was put out on the food table to share and it was so good, people were putting it on anything they could find including homemade angel food cake.

The beet ladies were so diligent. Their recipe had been miscalculated so they had to go out in the field a second time to gather more beets for their pickled beet recipe. The pickled beets were being processed in the farmhouse kitchen.

The kids were all so cute, but also mischievous. Shortly after this picture was taken I was sprayed with a make shift squirt gun....

More mischievousness on the farm:

Once I had taken my first round of photos, very few recipes were left. I was chosen for the Jardiniere. So, apparently Jardiniere is a French word meaning gardener. In this case, the recipe for Jardiniere included lots of wonderful garden vegetables along with fresh herbs.

Below are the tarragon and thyme for my recipe:

Many of the recipes including mine came from Lyn's 'The Joy of Pickling' cookbook. Shortly after I was assigned my recipe and Lyn and I started pulling together the ingredients, two families showed up and they were assigned to work with me. This made the job a whole lot easier. We prepped zucchini, cucumber, carrots, red bell peppers, mixed hot peppers, shallots, pattypan squash, garlic and the herbs.

This mother/daughter team immediately started filling the jars with a clove of garlic, 4 peppercorns and a pinch of allspice berries.

Once the jars were filled with the spices, veggies, and herbs, they were ready for their vinegar, water and salt brine.

Sterilized lids and rims were added and while the mixture was still hot, they were processed for 20 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Another mother/daughter team I got to work with: Laura and 9 month old Julia. One of the cutest babies I have ever laid eyes on. She is a twin. Her brother, Matthew was off having fun with Juvencio.

Green beans waiting for their brine:

Hot peppers and olive oil:

freshly picked and washed tomatoes for the hot tomato sauce:

Boiling water baths:

Finished tomato basil sauce:

Juvencio with the twins:

Once the recipes were complete, everyone got one of each canned good:

Most of the group...

I got to bring home 16 jars of goodness. They are all so beautiful.

A big bunch of zucchini went from this

to this:

Lyn wanted me to take two jars of Jardiniere so that I could send one to Joey at Oberlin.

and all I really wanted to do was open up that jar of blackberry jam and slather it all over a piece of toast.

Now I am invigorated to do some canning at home. I am dying to make some peach preserves and Michael just got done picking strawberries and blackberries from the garden that he wants made into jam... and when those big tomatoes finally turn red, they are going into a big jar of sauce, for sure!

Oberlin College

2010-09-01T19:14:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Cleveland Monday night. Joey checked into his dorm at Oberlin College on Tuesday morning.

Below: Dascomb Dormitory at Oberlin College

Below: a very strange tree outside Joey's dorm that I have never seen before.

The back side of Joey's dorm. Joey and Zach's room is on the shady park (quad) side of the dorm building. A much prettier, shadier spot. Their room is on the third (top) floor right in the middle of the picture below.

Of course Joey's side of the room is very eclectic and very colorful.

Aunt Tiffy will notice the colorful bird she gave Joey when he was in the Neonatal ICU just hours after his traumatic birth almost 19 years ago (as you can see it all worked out... he looks "almost" normal :0). Grammy will notice one of her many beautiful quilts gracing Joey's bed. The puffin pillowcase is there too, behind the gray pillows.

Zachary's side of the room is a little more subdued:

Below: Joey and Zach. New roommates!

And so it begins... Joey's college years. Sad and happy, but mostly happy and exciting!