Catering on a sailboat...

This was a fun adventure! I've never been on a sailboat this size (37foot?). I've been a passenger and a helmsman on my Dad's dory boat and a passenger on a couple of other small craft, so the trip was cool enough on it's own. But as icing, the invitation came from my father-in-law to cater a small group of folks who had purchased a sailing day as part of an auction to support the Bear Valley Music Festival. And on top of that, the weather was perfect!

We traveled up to Alameda to the Oakland Yacht Club about 10:30am. We sailed down the channel and out into the bay - across to Angel Island/Tiberon and ate lunch in the wind shadow.
Then, sailed around and across into some fascinating mid-day fog, then back down and home. I had a reach-in fridge and a gimbaled 2 burner stove with oven to work with, so it wasn't exactly roughing it.

I asked for menu advice from lots of folks, thanks for all the responses (Especially to Walter and Chef Denise!). I couldn't decide on a theme for 4 courses, so I mostly went for a "what needs to get used up from the 'fridge" motif with a touch of "picnic food".

- Kir Imperials served as soon as they boarded, with fresh plain strawberries. Simple fruit is an easy win. The drinks are champagne with a touch of Chambord. If you haven't, then you really, really ought to.

- 2 rounds of appetizers on the way out:
* Toasted almonds: they were *supposed* to be spicy toasted almonds, but despite doubling the salt and spices in the recipe, they were pretty bland. Luckily there was more salt and pepper on board, so I heated them up in a pan, as planned and dumped a handful of salt to them. The butter, newly added salt and the heating made 'em pretty darn good, just not what I was shooting for.
* Triple toast: Melba toasts with one of a) roasted tomatoes and green onions with fresh mozzarella, b) smoked salmon and soft goat cheese c) white bean and olive pate - a little bit like this, but I added green olives for flavor. Not bad all around, the roasted tomatoes were the best, I thought.

Then we hit the bumpy part of the trip. Yes, I had a couple of things go flying and I did end up kneading the bread dough while at a 30degree angle. So, that was cool! Unless I end up on a space station, when will I ever get a chance to knead bread while standing on a wall again?!

- I tried to time the bread to come out at 1pm for lunch. Once the "heeling over" and rocking had subsided, I could get it into the hot oven, so it was only a little bit late. I ended up serving lunch in two parts, too.
* First served: sausage/mushroom skewers and deviled eggs. I'd roasted the mushrooms and sausage with the tomatoes on Friday and skewered them with some of the green onions. They were damn good. I never did get any deviled eggs, so they seemed to be OK, too. Deviled eggs: always a crowd pleaser.
* Then served: Butternut squash soup with rosemary and ginger. Like deviled eggs, it's hard to find a group that doesn't swoon over butternut squash soup. The pizza dough recipe only wants 15 minutes to rise and 15 minutes in the oven, but that didn't account for being tossed around a bit first... I made breadsticks and they turned out fine.





Off we went! After doing dishes in the ship's galley (and again: when will I get to say *that* again!), I went up on deck and enjoyed the amazing weather. Took a trip thru some fog, past the city and then into the bumpy bit again.

- Once the bumping was over, and we were in for a slow cruise back to the slip, I put out some desert: what I called blueberry parfait (just the fruit in a vanilla yogurt with orange juice - so not really a parfait. Close enough for government work, eh?).



All in all, a fantastic day. I'm told the weather will never, ever, ever be that good again for a sailing day, so I guess I should quit while I'm on top and never go again.

Although, there is talk of a spring catered trip....


PS: Nearly got boarded by pirates!

We're going to rock down to...

Check out Rebecca's new-used electric cruiser bike! It's supposed to give power for about 30 min of assisted motoring, lots more if you are pedalling on your own for large
parts of the trip. We're hoping to go on more bike rides together, this will help level the playing field, since I'm a more experienced rider with a much more distance-friendly bike. ie: maybe she can keep up now! :-)

Camping report - August


Uvas Canyon Park for the win!

The park is about a 90 min drive away, so we didn't make it down on Friday night. Rebecca had to work late-ish, so we took it easy instead of rushing down there (and possibly not being able to get in when the gates close at sunset). It's a drive-up car camping (park next to the tent) as opposed to a haul-in car camping like Sanborn (cart your gear 300+ yards from the car to the tent). Also, it ended up being just the two of us, so we didn't feel any pressure to get down there to host.

Drove down Sat AM, set up the tent and went for some walks. We didn't expect any water at all along the creeks and the Waterfall trail in the dusty dry summer, but were pleasently surprised! The creek burbled merrily in it's low volume way and we had our lunch right by it. The Waterfall trail had about 2 dozen stops on a nature guide (PDF) that talked about plants (mostly) and trail features. The trails were well-kept and didn't suffer from the "overall sameness" of the trails at Sanborn-Skyline. (ie: we had ups'n'downs, stream crossings, bridges, steep side trips to overlooks and water(trickle)falls, etc). Wildlife abounded: we saw newts, snakes, deer, orioles(?), quail, ground squirrels, wild turkyes and jays.

Dinner was cous cous and cauliflower, breakfast was oatmeal. All-in-all a very low-key and relaxed get-away for two. The campgrounds are *very* kid- and dog-friendly, we may have been the only people there that didn't have one or both along with. We're certainly going to go back, especially with Niece Melissa, to explore more. We only did about half the trails and haven't even started on the fishing there yet (looks like boating is off limits for right now). A spring trip for full-fledged waterfalls and some wild flowers would be ideal.

September: hike-in tent camping at Portola!

Veggie report - week of 8/12

Torpedo onions have usable green onion-ish tops. We got strawberries *and* squash, bright purple cauliflower and our mystery was a 2nd head of lettuce (or maybe it's escarole).

Out of my own back yard, I got 4 green beans. *sigh* I upped the watering quite a bit, hoping to coax more out of all the plants, and that seems to be working. There are a couple more yellow cucumbers coming in, one big green cucumber, 2 bell peppers and 3 little yellow waxy peppers. A miserable yield, but much better than it was looking in July.

The fresh corn salad from last week? zomg!

The LazyMan(TM) pickling method worked out just fine! Ate some of the pickling cucumbers soaked in left-over dill pickle juice along with sandwiches. I'd call them bland/mild, but they tasted like pickles with zero effort.

- Turned the oven on, so I figured I'd do lots of dishes at the same time: Roasted up the potatoes from last week with the last bit of the tarragon (roasted potatoes - good for any meal), also the beets separately (for beet/feta salad) and made up a big pan of chicken casserole with romanesco and squash.
- Looking for new tomato ideas, I found Pan Tumaca. Basically, you rub a tomato onto a piece of garlic toast. Good, but didn't knock my socks off.
- The "something different" that I tried with squash: I took the Pattypan squash and cut them into rounds and batter fried them. I saw that in a Greek cookbook that I have, so I guess you'd call them Kolokythakia Tiganita mmMMmmm. Fried food.... Now, *those* were super. Going to use the rest of the batter from the fried zuchs for pub fish early next week.
- I prepped up some food to take car camping with us on Saturday: Made a great, crusty wheat bread for trail sandwiches (made them small, so they are like individual loaves) and packed a cup of cous-cous to fry up with some purple cauliflower and pine nuts for dinner.

Saw Julie & Julia last night. Walter said "delightful and forgettable". I loved the foodie stuff and Rebecca and I are still talking about how good Meryl Streep was, so not as forgettable for us.

Veggies galore...

A friend basically asked me: how much food do you really get from the CSA weekly box? If it's just two of us would it be a good amount or would we be struggling to eat all of it? Here's their FAQ answer.

I guess it's alot, but we're both nearly 100% vegetarian at home, and rarely eat out. So, I buy lots of food at the grocery store to supplement, every week.

From the CSA weekly box link, here's the list, with some estimates of amounts.

Sweet Corn - 7 ears
Tomatoes - 8 or so smallish tomatoes
summer squash - 6 or 7 small squash
Fennel - 1 good-sized bulb
Romanesco - 1 medium head
Strawberries - 1 quart
Scallions - 1 big bunch
Red Butter - 1 medium sized head

If you eat a decent amount of vegetables and especially if you don't eat out very much, I think it's a completely sensible quantity. They have a 4week trial period sometimes, but they may also have a waiting list right now. I'd say give it a try!

Buying from a farmer's market gets you pretty much all the benefits and allows you to control the amounts, tho'... (I think the weekly box is pretty darn cheap, tho', compared to Whole Foods or farmer's market). I pre-payed for the whole year and I think that works out to about $19/week.

Veggie Report 8/5

The weekly baskets seemed a little light sometimes in May/June. That's all forgiven in the deep summer months.

Here's this week's list of veggies from Two Small Farms, our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm.

Amazing Cook Tim sent us some food earlier this week, too! Gazpacho and homemade tortillas (some made by Princess Melissa) and rice with peppers. mmmMMmmm... thanks, man. I don't get food gifts often enough! Also, a bag of superior cherry tomatoes from the Princess's garden.



It's a very summer-ry basket this week. Strawberries, summer squash (the mystery this week), corn and tomatoes. And green onions. A big bunch. Luckily, I was nearly out. (no, really!) Rebecca loooooooves corn and we got about 8 ears, so many corn dishes are a'coming. Plus, one of the great oddities of the vegtable world called romanesco broccoli. It looks like an alien plant, but it's a kind of cauliflower, I guess. (Turns out that broccoli and cauliflower are the same species. Who knew?)

Finishing out last week:
- I read lots of pickling and brining recipes last week for the pickling cucumbers, but couldn't bring myself to start a canning operation. (Lazy!) So, when I finished a jar a pickles, I cut about 3/4 of the pickling cucumbers up into spears and stuck them in the left-over pickle juice. I figure in a week or so, they'll have soaked up some vinegar-y, dill-y, garlic-y goodness. Or, they'll taste just like cucumbers soaked in salt water. I'll let you know.
- I took potatoes from a few weeks back and made a dish similar to one suggested by Facebook Kelly: a "no mayo" potato salad with green beans and feta cheese. (*cough* ...and green onions). Thanks, Kelly!
- Chicken stock and the chard and the beet greens went into a red risotto. Golly, I like risotto. Learned how to make it from Walter, who learned from a master.
- Oh and that "lettuce"? That wasn't lettuce. That was escarole, a slightly bitter tasting green that's more firm than spinach and softer then chard. I've made that mistake before. Ask me about the "bad lettuce soup" sometime. I sauteed the escarole and nearly all the green and bulb onions up with the rest of the tarragon. I had it for breakfast with some sunnyside eggs poached in salsa. Kinda-of-a rancho huevos with greens.


Tongight:
- I'll prep up the strawberries for breakfast. Strawberries are almost entirely a cereal topping here at the Bungalow. If they get a little too ripe, I turn them into a desert sauce, or toss them in the freezer for smoothies.
- Tomatoes + corn + a couple peppers from our own backyard(!) and some (everybody say it with me!) green onions will make a nice summer side salad.
- It really is lettuce this time, so actual salad with Princess tomatoes, fennel and feta. I'll bake some bread to go with.

I gotta find something cool to do with summer squash. Something out of the ordinary, so no breads, no pasta, no stir-fry. I'll work on that...

Take care

Veggie Report - July 29th

Quite a bit left-over from last week and the weekend camping trip: Lettuce, beet greens, spinach, and tons of green onions. 4 big bunches. Big. Like, 4-5 times the mass of those little bundles that you get in the grocery store. So, imagine 15 or so of those bunches in your 'fridge. Luckily, I love onions. The wife, not so much. So, where to put the onions?

Here's this week's list of veggies from Two Small Farms, our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm.

I got pickling cucumbers as the "mystery" and tarragon (got basil last week). Note that the lettuce is 2 big heads of red leaf (plus chard, plus cabbage - you have to loooove your greens) and the onions are bulbs with *huge* usable greens. Make that 20+ store-sized bunches of green onions.

So, tonight, I made:
- Creamed spinach, tarragon and chicken casserole. That "spinach"? Half green onions, well cooked. Turned out spectacularly well: broiled it with homemade bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. mmMMMmmm.
- 3/4 of the red cabbage went into a standard "Adam dish": sauteed cabbage with vinegar plus lots of onion and garlic. I have it for lunches with sausage, bread, cheese and pickles. Hey, my people are from Eastern Europe, what can I tell you? The wife won't touch it, so I'm free to put big handfuls of green onions in it, plus some tarragon. Fewer kisses on "cabbage days", tho'. *sadface*
- 1/4 of the cabbage went to a cabbage, carrot, broccoli coleslaw without so much green onion in it, at all. We'll have that and something else picnic-y tomorrow when we go see the San Mateo "Music in the Park".
- Salsa Verde: used the CSA tomatillos, plus my poor little under-ripe cherry tomatoes from the garden, some lime juice, salt and chili flakes. And, yes, some green onions. Just for looks, I swear! Might be the winner from tonight. Homemade salsa verde is the bomb.
- Chicken stock: took the 2 chicken carcasses from the camping trip and all the trimmings from the above veggies (cabbage cores, green onion ends, tarragon stems, etc plus some garlic) and boiled them for a couple hours. It came out a little weak (should have started it much earlier and reduced it a lot more) and kinda purple (neat!) because of the cabbage, but there's 6 cups of chicken stock I don't have to buy. Wild rice soup or risotto or into the freezer with you! Did add some tarragon, but NO green onions.

I'll add those later.

Ahhhh, Facebook.

You win.

Adam Wiznals on FB

Hey Fam!

R and I are talking about going to SoCal for the week of Xmas and then off to England for New Year's. She's got a conference in London from Jan 7th-11th at the Globe.

It's all very tentative right now, but we might fly into Manchester(?) on the 30th and then travel south the next week, alighting in London by the 6th.

R would fly out of London on the 11th/12th, but if work is treating me well, I might stay on in London again past the 11th.

Anyhow's, if you're over there: get ready! If you're over *here*: want to go with? :-)

"It's not rocket science...."

A growing number of people in the world eating a shrinking number of fish. "...we are hitting up against the capacity of the planet to provide for us..."

h/t to the Dish

adding:

We are in a war against fish. And we are winning.

6000 years of marriage madness...

Full of swear words and hysterical hypocrisy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw

H/T to Le Blanc on Facebook

Eepybird post-it notes

Just saw these guys again at Maker's Faire doing their Diet Coke and Mentos thing. (mmmMMMmmm. Diet Coke.)

here's their "other big thing":

http://www.vimeo.com/1700732?pg=embed&sec=1700732

Walter Speaks

Terminator bad

Wolverine really bad

Up is an excellent adventure movie from Pixar, with stunning animation, and another group of fun and interesting characters. They balance humor,adventure, and real human emotions like no other. Awesome movie. I'm seeing it again...

Drag Me to Hell is Evil Dead with a budget. The movie is literally insane; a B horror schlock crossed with a looney tunes cartoon. And I mean all of that in the best way possible. Many scenes had me jumping out of my seat either in fear or grossed out of my mind.

Didn't keep his first two reviews. Maybe I'll get copies of them from someone...

Way of the World soundtrack

Loved the play? Want the music? Here ya go....

That's 17 songs out of the 23 songs and 1 sound effect that Rebecca has on her WotW soundtrack... everything that's available in iTunes. The rest would be:

Comfortably Numb - Scissor Sisters
Common People - William Shatner
It's Alright - Supertramp
L'amour avec un con - Adrian Pauly
Les Histoires d'Amours - Rita Mitsuko
Sparkling Diamonds from Moulin Rouge
'Horse and Cart' sound effect


Update: I think "The Fear" is my favorite song. Here's the video. Video is... meh... but the lyrics to the song are pretty cool.

Seriously easy home-baked bread

I've intended to make more bread at home, but never seem to get
around to it. No more excuses! Bill pointed me to:

http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/

zomg! Finally tried this. Sooooo easy and very good.

Got the basic recipe from the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/dining/211brex.html

I made mine with 4c white, 2c wheat and 0.5c spelt. I forgot the salt. Next time!

Bread for dinner, 3 more loaves worth of dough in the 'fridge.

woo-hoo!

In summary...

Obama's Hundred Days on Facebook

Astonishing stunt cyclist

I kept thinking: This has got to be special effects...

H/T to Cousin Jim

Super-slo-mo is the best

Myth Busters rocket sled car crash.

H/T to Bad Astronomy

I kept thinking Batman would show up...

This short film by Adam Berg was created to show off the new Philips Cinema 21:9 LCD TV. More here.

H/T to the Dish. Always the Dish.

So, it wasn't IBM, but...

... Sun got chewed up by someone. Not sure what that does to my world. More news as events warrant...

Bill - you and I work for the same company now?! (update3: oh, duh! you work at Cisco...)

Update:

Mercury News: My first thought was "IBM tried to offer below the $9.50/share bare minimum and the deal broke up. Oracle is then able to offer *just* the bare minimum and get the deal." Still, the $/share price for the deal was well above where Sun was trading...

Guardian: call's it a goof for IBM to have passed on it

Reuters: it surprised Microsoft, so I guess I shouldn't feel *too* far out of the loop.

Update 2:

Overall, I think it's probably good for the company, good for the customers, good for the stock price and bad for me. WLG sends this tidbit:

"But its (Sun's) gross margins on hardware remain high, so maybe if
you blow out the company’s operating infrastructure quickly you can
make the numbers work."

Yup, I'm kinda in the "operating infrastructure" world.

Update 3: Oh, dear. I'm afraid this is what I'm thinking, too.