That one time where we accidentally drove to winter

It's been quite a couple of days, friends. So we went to Yellowstone on Sunday -- really beautiful, well worth the price of admission. Waterfalls and steaming slopes of hot spring-laden rock and herds of bison and elk wandering about.

Then, we left the park.

(Dramatic pauses for a reason)

We took US 212 out of the park, the far northeast entrance - the one going the way we were headed. I didn't notice till we were well en route the map's note about how the road is closed in the winter. This may seem irrelevant as it was August 31st but living in the shadow of the Cascades and Olympics, I know this is not generally a good sign and that winter is more of an elevation difference than a season in the West. I didn't think too much of it, though, and figured we'd be fine. Well, we were, but that's probably because EPH was driving and he is much less inclined to panic. We were cruising along, headed up a series of switchbacks through what the map told us is known as Beartooth Pass. (At the time I hypothesized that this was due to the jagged silhouette of the mountain but now I wonder if people get stuck and eaten up there) As we climbed, I was a little nervous about the extremity of the switchbacks, as well as the odd tendency to NOT put guardrails next to sheer drops. But it was beautiful so I tried to not worry, and EPH was driving slowly to keep me calm. Early on we noticed that there was snow at the top of the mountain - again, very far up so didn't dwell on it. But then the snow got closer...and closer...and the GPS elevation told us we were passing 10,000 feet and suddenly the snow was along the road and the "fog" was extremely dense and the ground all around was covered in thick frost. Keep in mind we're still on extreme switchbacks and we're in the middle of nowhere with no cell signal at all - rural Montana. This is how survival movies start, amirite?

Then it got scarier -- we had to go DOWN the other side. Still switchbacks, only now we notice the road surface itself is, uh, shiny. So we're going down twisty windy roads, on the side of a mountain, on ice-covered roads. We're going super slow and I'm praying every prayer I know while mentally alternating with swearing a blue streak, and we're hoping that a) we stay on the road and b) nobody comes along behind us and can't slow down in time and we both go off the mountain.

Needless to say, since I'm typing this we clearly survived, but in my head I was definitely running through the various provisions and blankets in the truck and thinking I might actually have to use them. Scary. Pro tip - AVOID BEARTOOTH PASS if driving in/out of Yellowstone!!!

Just inside the western edge of North Dakota.

Not long after, though, we encountered more bison - these were just roaming free near a rest stop. Amazing.

So, that was Sunday. Monday we got to Fargo, which was surprisingly adorable, and where we had a fantastic dinner in a place called the Beefsteak Club. Check it out if, for some odd reason, you are in Fargo. The next morning EPH hopped a flight off to work, and I drove on. My adventures, such as they are, in the next post.

Homer lost patience with this road trip business and spent some time sulking. 

Living la vida local

So, it's another day in paradise. Sorry, people who aren't here. I just can't get over it.

I went out today, with intent to check out a new park and/or go for a hike in an old favorite. I found the new "park" - really a forest - but for the life of me couldn't find an entrance. I'm not quite local enough yet...it was actually over on Maury, which is called Maury Island but seems to be attached to Vashon. Per Wikipedia, it was originally freestanding but in 1913 was attached by a locally constructed isthmus. There's your trivia for the day, kids.

Anyhoo, I abandoned that plan, and figured I'd tool around a bit before heading over to Island Center Forest, where I've had many blissful deep woods hikes. I meandered along, ended up along a beach road, and pulled over to get some salt air and sunshine therapy. As I was gathering up camera and binoculars (I'm always hopefully watching for some interesting marine mammals), a battered old pickup pulled up next to me. The driver, a grizzled dude in a fisherman hat, mutt by his side, watched me get out and (out of habit) lock the door. I got about three steps before I heard "you don't gotta take your purse, you know. Vashon people won't mess with your stuff." I called back that I only had it to carry my assorted gadgets, to which he replied "oh good, I thought maybe you were just being a tighta$s." What can one do there but laugh? No, I told him, not a tight$s - just practical. This apparently was enough for him to feel like I deserved an inside tip, and he told me if I went down a ways, turned at the corner, parked by the metal bar after the dip -- I'd find the best beach on the island. "30 years here, I know a thing or two," he said. I thanked him, headed back to my car to check this out, and wished him a good day - to which I got a "you too, sweetheart." There are some from whom that offends a woman, and some from whom it's just endearing. This, obviously, was the latter.

Dunes leading up to the beach

The beach was wide, nearly empty, and gloriously salty and sunny. Moral of the story: always listen to the locals - particularly when they tell you the water is warm enough to wade in. Despite it being Sound water, so typically icy, it was in fact warm enough for wading, and clear as glass. I never did get to the Island Center Forest, but that's okay.

Just another day in paradise. Now off to collect some mainland friends from the ferry for a fun night out, island-style.

It's too clear to tell but my feet are both underwater...in the Puget Sound! Without numbness! Unheard of.

Real glad I met this big daddy on dry land.

Getting back in the groove

It's time to wake this thing back up. It's time for cold (permanently foggy) days and fireplaces. It's time to refocus from the depressing cesspool of our country's "government" to food, family, friends, festivities. It's Time To Cook.

It was a summer of minimal cooking - life was busy, EPF and I moved, and, well, it was summer, when a lack of both a/c and a grill means lots of salads and sushi. What with my patio garden doing really truly terribly, my domestic inspiration level was low, low, looooow. But now that we're sharing a home and eating together, there is some actual planning that needs to happen for us to eat like normal people (read: not takeout every night, which we could easily slip into with the wealth of options in this neighborhood). So: while I'm without garden for now (of the outdoor plants, only the rosemary and now-struggling sage made the move - the others went to the Garden Intake Shelter, aka my next door neighbors' patio), I do need menu planning motivation and this blog is going to be it! Because I said so! And so it is! (Do I sound fired up yet? I'm still working on the coffee.)

This week I'm also embarking on a new low-grade project: each week I'm attempting a new, ideally seasonal, produce that I haven't messed with previously (or at least don't do on a regular basis). I feel like incorporating fresh produce outside of the summer is challenging, but I know it can be done, so will now shame myself into doing so. This week, squash. I acquired delicata and acorn at the farmer's market yesterday, and am starting with delicata since I've never made it. (Acorn I have made, so it's in case of crisis - this is the first week, after all)

The week's plan:

• Monday: Slow cooker carnitas & roasted delicata squash. This is a double experiment as I've never made carnitas either, but nothing in the slow cooker is that complex - so how hard can it be? I'm combining a couple recipes - we'll see how it goes.
• Tuesday: Roast chicken thighs with carrot-fennel soup (yay for carrot and fennel season!)
• Wednesday: (nothing: we have dinner plans, so a nicely timed break)
• Thursday: Roast chicken a la EPF. Somehow I have reached the distinguished age of...uh...over 28 without mastering the art of roast chicken (intact, that is - I can handle pieces - see Tuesday). I can make one, but it won't be amazing. EPF, on the other hand, creates a masterpiece, so he is in charge of this one. If the acorn squash is still around, it may go with this. TBD.
• Friday: Leftover red sauce & pasta. It's Friday, people. C'mon. 

Lots of white meat, but then again we've been eating a lot of lamb and bacon lately so it's probably a good thing to err away from the highest possible cholesterol levels for a bit, no?

"Ask not what you can do for your country. 
Ask what's for lunch."
-Orson Wells

On 8-legged neighbors: a digression

The Pacific northwest is a pretty spidery place. We don't really have a mosquito problem, or a lot of other "buggy" issues that seem to plague the rest of the country (at least here in the city, anyway), so we're lucky there. But we have got SPIDERS. Lots of 'em. Which I guess probably is related. But I digress. Around this time every year, these spiders are suddenly ginormous. Like, ridiculous big momma spiders. Prior to living out here, I had a firm conviction that the biggest spiders could be found in Harrisburg - my office was on the 10th floor, and even up there they'd have these whoppers (on the outside of the windows, thankfully). There were urban myths that these spiders were some sort of mutant, a descendant of the spider victims of the Three Mile Island disaster, as TMI isn't that far from Harrisburg. Whether this was true, I don't know, but my first season in Portland trumped all those spiders. I've mostly gotten used to it now, but every so often we have these whoppers a little too close for comfort. This morning, I went out to water my plants (we've had something like .02 inches of rain over the past 53 days or so), and stopped dead in the doorway - the spiders, the big hosses, are here - and they're setting up shop in my bamboo, which a) needs watering and b) is awfully close to my door. This is bad on so many levels. One of them is hanging out on a web that spans both, so it's just chilling in midair and you can't see the web if you don't look carefully. CREEPY. 

This one is currently MIA - the web is still there, though. This was yesterday, from the other side of the plant. [UPDATE: it's back - it wasn't there when I was out watering, but has since returned.] It's worth noting that these are not your little bamboo branch - they're a good 6' high with a decently wide span. Hard to dodge and very thirsty. 

I consider myself pretty comfortable with the outdoors and the life therein...but spiders, man...I saw Arachnophobia at an inappropriately young and impressionable age, and I think I'm still scarred. 

Growth! (Too much, even)

In my last post, I mentioned basil from my garden. One would think that suggested I've had success in this realm...one would be wrong. My basil seed had one tiny tiny sprout...and then it died. This is a common problem here in the Northwest - it's just not hot and sunny for long enough, and the basil can't tough it out like the rest of us. But to me, summer is caprese salad. My local farmers market has tomatoes early on, since it's a relatively short drive across the Cascade Mountains to the warm and dry climate, so I feel like I should make caprese...and last weekend I ran out of patience. Trader Joe's, which just opened down the street, had $3 basil, so I figured it was worth it. Well, I got down there and it wasn't bundles, like I assumed, but full-on plants!

 I clipped what I needed and plopped the remaining plant (or five, actually - quite a deal, this) right into the dirt that had once held a tiny spring of short-lived basil, and have had multiple caprese salads since, with these fun black zebra tomatoes from the market (and those other pretty orange ones...I forget what they are, though). So, I kind of (totally) cheated, but the end result is good, no?

In related news, my own tomato plants have had a growth spurt, including the one I planted from seed - I think it has almost caught up to the start I bought, which is very exciting.

Even better, the mint and rosemary - while not quite thriving - have recovered from their various ailments, (I don't think I talked about the mint here, but it had this weird white foam on it for a while which seems to have been harmless) and my peas are happily popping along in what the rest of the country calls "cool spring-like weather". 

The spinach does well in this climate, too - I've only got one little pot of it, but have gotten multiple salads and omelettes out of it. I just cut it back again - it's growing so fast that some of it was on the verge of bolting. 


I'm still having some challenges, though. For one thing, my thyme might be the slowest growing thing ever. I have approximately one recipe's worth, fully two months after I planted it. And those tomatoes have some sort of odd underleaf drooping happening. Google seems to suggest this is normal, but previous plants haven't done this, that I recall. On the upside, the only droopy branches are the ones that are leaves only, not blossoms or beginnings of tomatoes. I'm trying to make myself prune them...my first tomato attempt, on my deck back in Portland, went totally unpruned because I had no clue what I was doing. This led to a 6 foot cherry tomato plant. Literally. Needless to say, it wasn't the sturdiest thing in the world. 


So here's my challenge, and I need ideas. My sage plant has gone CRAZY. It kind of muddled along last summer, and just barely survived the winter...and suddenly it's huge, and when I wasn't looking it started producing gigantic leaves. I've trimmed it and frozen some, since all the recipes I typically use sage for are autumnal (roast poultry, roast pork)...and I have plenty of it dried already. What do I do with the rest?? Would love suggestions...

Something's Fishy 101

Summertime culinary adventures are a challenge. On the one hand there’s so much freshness – salmon and halibut are coming in fresh, vegetables and fruit are colorful and inviting at the market – but on the other hand, it’s hot, and cooking sounds only marginally appealing.

Here in Seattle, however, summer doesn’t arrive till early July, so it’s still cool enough to play around. The catch is that we have these weirdly long days that I didn’t know about before moving here. It’s bright by 4:30am, and not actually dark till 10. As a result, the light level doesn’t trigger my brain to think “mealtime” till a good 8pm (at the earliest), by which time I do not want to spend more than 15 minutes prepping anything. The resulting meals have been the following basic combo: pan-cooked fish of some sort + salad of some sort. If I’m feeling ambitious, and/or have something that’s about to go bad, and/or do NOT lose track of time, I may also steam some green thing of some sort – green beans, asparagus – either way it’s a three minute process. Take the other night’s meal: pan seared halibut + caprese salad. The caprese actually included basil from the back patio…which isn’t the success it sounds like. More about that in another post.

Anyway: I assumed pan-cooking fish was too basic for blogging, but I’ve had a decent number of people ask how to cook various types of fish lately, so maybe not. No judgment here – I still haven’t mastered a basic steak. Embarrassing but true. Anyway, I’ve been mostly doing salmon and halibut lately, and while they're essentially the same recipe I'll cover the salmon here - halibut is a little pricey this season.

Pan-grilled Salmon (not adapted from anyone!)

Ingredients

• Filet of salmon, skin-on, at least an inch thick (I roughly plan for about 1/3 lb, or a little more, per person)
• Olive oil (this is for coating the salmon, so about a tablespoon for every two servings. Also, if your kitchen doesn’t have great ventilation you might want to use grapeseed oil, as it has a slightly higher smoke point. You shouldn’t get a ton of flavor difference with the quantity you’re using, and if you’re paranoid about your smoke alarm – like I am – this gives you a little more space.)
• Fine sea salt, or kosher salt – just not coarse. You want it to cook in.
• Fresh cracked pepper

Get a decent salmon filet – the highest quality you can find and afford, and none of this Atlantic farmed business. Wild Pacific only (certain wild Scottish versions are acceptable, but it's still a different flavor). Ideally it won’t have been previously frozen, but if that’s what you’ve got it’s fine.

[*Note from your blogger: If you happen upon the gloriousness of Yukon King salmon, do NOT use this recipe. You want to have the least possible input on the flavor – it’s that good – and your best bet is to either go out to your grill or find a friend who will share their grill (they’ll be happy to do so forever after once they taste this), get some cedar planks, and plank that baby. It will be the most delicious thing ever, and unbelievably rich while still crazy healthy. Many recipes out there advise rubbing it down with crazy things like brown sugar, mustard, and – of all things – salad dressing. Ick. This may be useful for Atlantic salmon, which doesn’t have a dramatic a flavor so you’re not ruining anything, but for the love of Pete please don’t do this to anything from the Pacific. A little oil to keep it from sticking, some simple salt and pepper, and let the natural flavor shine through.*]

Now back to the recipe I’m ACTUALLY talking about…which is actually pretty similar. The key here is a grill pan – I have a heavy duty (but not cast iron one) and this recipe is based on that. The grill pan is key here, as it lets most of the oil fall away and gives it those great grill lines – and really, aesthetics are half the fun.

How you prepare the salmon for the pan is your personal discretion. If you cut the large piece into portions first, it’s much easier to deal with at the end, but I find that cooking it whole keeps it more moist. I do often mangle it at the end, though (see above picture), so your call.

Heat the pan over medium heat. You can adjust this depending on your range – most recipes say medium-high, but I’ve found that medium works better for me – more even cooking – plus I think my range isn’t calibrated 100% accurately.

While pan heats up, spoon the oil over both sides of the fish, making sure it’s evenly covered but not totally drenched. We’re not deep-frying here, people. Give each side a very generous coating of salt and pepper – you’ll get a great semi-crust later.

Once your pan is hot enough, place the salmon on the  grill ridges, skin side up. Be ready for the oil to sizzle and splatter a little bit. Leave it be and do not fuss with it, for roughly 3-4 minutes, but do keep an eye on the sides to make sure the color is changing. Once it looks to be cooked about halfway through, flip it gently and cook it for another 3-4 minutes (it will seem like it's cooking faster, but be patient). At this point it’s a combination of judgment call/thickness of fish. I like mine a little rare in the center, so I stop here. If that makes you nervous, you can leave it for another minute – but keep an eye on it! You don’t want to overcook it and lose the flavor.

And…that’s it. Oil, salt and pepper, pan. Add a big simple salad of some sort, and you’ve got dinner.

[*Note from your blogger: If you aren't a salmon fan: when I make halibut (or redfish if I'm in NOLA), I use essentially the same recipe, except I use a normal skillet and not the grill pan. My opinion, not universally shared, is that even the thick white-flesh fish isn't firm enough to sit happily on the grill pan's ridges. So: normal skillet, about 1-3 tablespoons of oil (depending on the size of your fillet), with the oil heated in the pan instead of on the fish. You're looking to sear it here, and this will give you a nice golden crust. Cook it for roughly 4-5 minutes per side, following the same protocol as salmon (don't fuss with it, prepare for splatter).  These cooking times are all based on the thickness of the fish and the calibration of the stove, so unlike the professionals I can't give you an exact calculation - but that's a good thing, as the best way to get the hang of this is trial and error.*]

Let me know how yours turns out! If you're already past this stage of beginner fish, what twists do you add in? Interesting sauces? Something else in the oil/salt/pepper mix?

Oh yeah, I'm planting things too

When I started this blog, I promised it would be for cooking and for gardening, and thus far (thanks to Seattle's weather) it's been all food, all the time. No more! We just had this bizarre stretch of nice weather (which is now MIA, but there's rumors it will return), and I promptly headed out to my patio, cleaning up the winter's mess and getting things going for the spring/summer. About a month ago, I started a few seeds in those little cups that break down in the larger pots - no replanting required - and am now, with a few exceptions, gradually moving them outside. I am 100% a container gardener - I have a patio of a decent size, and that's the end of it. Which is perfectly fine by me - no weeding! A few years back I tried to garden in a patch at the back of my parents' yard, and it was a disaster. Granted, it was the summer of May and June deluges, so the shallots and garlic drowned and rotted and things that lived were stunted at best, but on top of that I felt like there was a daily losing battle with the weeds. And this was when I was unemployed, so had plenty of time to be out there weeding every day - and I still couldn't keep up. So, containers are how I roll now.

It's still early in the season, so the only thing that's actually "grown" so far is my lavender. Lavender grows like crazy out here - I accidentally created a wild lavender offshoot in one of the apartment complex-maintained planters when nature sent some seeds/pollen floating over from my pot. My plant had gone dormant over the summer, and having never grown it before I wasn't sure what to expect. It lives in this cool ceramic pot that I like, but which doesn't slope out enough at the top for easy repotting. So, I left it be...then two weeks ago, looked out my window to see the thing had just about doubled in size!

                             

So, a good start out here, as with the mint plant that also refuses to die. Other struggling holdovers include rosemary and sage, both of which got a little more rain than I think they would have liked. But they're hanging in there, and I'm hopeful. Bring on the sunshine!