Monday’s snowfall was even worse than last week’s. We must have gotten 6 inches of heavy, wet snow. I took the bus home before travel got really dicey. To add to the misery, many places lost power – including us.
The power flickered off and on in the wee hours, then went off. Fortunately, the temperature was near freezing rather than lower. I bundled up in layers. For a while, I shoveled out the driveway to stay warm. After Julian got up we warmed up water for tea and coffee on a little Coleman propane burner. We started the gas fireplace. This required moving the flat screen TV out of the way, which is why I didn’t do it earlier. I did some writing in the old school way – on paper. The power finally came back on around 5 pm, just in time for Julian to make dinner.
Luka and I enjoying hearth and home.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/02/14/surviving-snowpocalpyse/
The Anna’s hummingbird is a year-round resident of the Seattle area. We have a group that lives in the big-ass Douglas Fir just off our decks. We put out feed for them. Unfortunately, it’s been so cold that the feed freezes overnight. (As Julian says, “So much for freezing point depression.”)
Hummingbirds are quite territorial. We often see them chasing each other away from the feeder. A recent article in The New York Times shows the rather nasty beak of one species of hummingbird, which seems to be designed to maim the competition. Despite their territorial behavior, this video shows a male hummingbird trying to free a female from the center well of a feeder similar to ours.
I was trying to get a picture of the hummingbirds at the feeder today with my phone, but I wasn’t fast enough. I was also in the midst of baking frenzy. Julian brought his camera and tripod upstairs and lay in wait for his subjects. He succeeded.
Hummingbirds at our feeder in the snow. Photo courtesy of Julian.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/02/10/hummingbirds/
All Hell breaks loose here when a snowstorm is predicted. Hardware stores run out of snow shovels and deicer. Grocery stores run out of bread, milk, and toilet paper. Schools close early and people rush to get home before the roads get impassable. The people who have four- or all-wheel drive vehicles believe they’re invincible on snowy or icy roads. Fortunately for the rest of us, they’re the first ones to skid into the ditches.
We got about 4″ of snow here at Casa Sammamish yesterday. While that amount would be considered church picnic weather in the Snow Belt of upstate New York where I grew up, it effectively paralyzes the Seattle-Tacoma region. Main roads get cleared. Side streets languish until the weather gets warmer or enough people are brave enough to drive. The steep hills and traffic roundabouts on side streets make plowing a challenge. The buses are as disadvantaged as cars. During Monday’s snowfall, two buses I was on lost their chains on Interstate 5. It took me 2 1/2 hours to get to work that morning from the Park and Ride.
This morning I peeked out of our bedroom window. It was still dark out, but the snow reflected what light there was from the street lamps. The other thing that struck me was the silence. I didn’t hear any cars or trucks driving on 96th Avenue. I haven’t seen anyone in the park across the river from our condo yet. That may change soon, as the snowshoers and cross-country skiers wake up. The silence was occasionally broken by quacks or honks by our resident waterfowl. I’ll have to shovel the driveway at some point. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the silence of the snowfall.
View of the park this afternoon. About four inches of snow fell yesterday.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/02/09/snowfall-silence/
“Why a duck, why a no chicken?”*
~ Chico Marx, The Cocoanuts
The Alaskan Way Viaduct in downtown Seattle is about to be demolished. In its place is a tunnel that’s set to open tomorrow. The Viaduct is an ugly elevated highway that’s a physical and visual barrier to the waterfront. The Nisqually Earthquake of 2001 damaged the infrastructure to the point that the city and state decided it had to come down lest it pancake on cars similar to the Embarcadero during the 1988 San Francisco Quake.
Yesterday was the public’s opportunity to say goodbye to the structure. The city hosted a 5K run along its length. It also had an arts exposition. See this link for details. The original celebration was by ticket only, but during the afternoon a walk on the Viaduct was open to anyone. Here’s The Seattle Times article. Julian and I walked about 50 yards on it and left. I’d walked on it before for Heart Walks and the Race for the Cure. Julian observed it was so crowded, one would think they were handing out free doughnuts. Or, since this is Seattle, doobies.
*I’ve been waiting for four years to use a line from a Marx Brothers movie in a blog post!
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/02/03/a-short-walk-on-the-viaduct/
Unlike in previous years, we are not hosting the annual Friday Night Follies Super Bowl Party. The Medieval Dinner last week was enough entertaining for a few weeks. Our former next door neighbor graciously offered to host the hungry masses.
We are still going to bring chicken wings, although a different variety. I did a variation of Korean chicken wings that I found in Fine Cooking magazine. We may need to tone it down a little for the chile wimps. We’ll also have to do an aliquot of wings for the allium-phobe, since the Korean wings are heavy on garlic.
And who am I rooting for? The retired player who presents the Lombardi Trophy. Will his knees give out on the long walk to the podium?
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/02/02/this-years-super-bowl/
Winter is prime birdwatching season on our stretch of the Sammamish. The bald eagles are back from summering in the mountains. Cormorants flap their wings in dominance rituals on a small sand spit where a creek drains into the river. A snow goose slums with its Canada geese cousins. A great blue heron from the rookery up the road in Kenmore fishes off a snag opposite our townhouse. We’ve even seen a crow dive for fish.
We have a far greater number of mergansers on the river now than in previous years. They’re fun to watch. Instead of tipping over to feed as the mallards do, the mergansers arch their backs and dive into the water. When several do so, their moves rival the best synchronized swim teams. With luck, this mess of mergansers will produce ducklings to watch come May.
What I hope to see this spring. Merganser with ducklings on the Sammamish. Photo courtesy of Julian.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/02/02/a-mess-of-mergansers/
When I ride the bus to work, I go past a little storefront in downtown Seattle that calls itself the Grilled Cheese Experience. Really? Are people so culinarily challenged that they have to get grilled cheese sandwiches at a restaurant?
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/01/31/we-are-in-culinary-end-times/
Last night’s French dinner left us with a variety of leftovers. So what to do? Make a casserole from the odds and ends. This is what we call a gemisch.
I got out the leftover brown rice, chicken thighs, cooked leeks, and chicken broth out of the refrigerator. I also got a partial bottle of piquillo peppers and a small Spanish chorizo sausage out of the fridge and a partial bag of artichoke hearts out of the freezer. I microwaved the artichoke hearts, then stirred in the rice, chicken, chorizo, peppers, and leeks. For seasoning I added some thyme and marjoram. I moistened the mixture with a little chicken broth, covered the casserole with foil, and baked it at 375° for 30 minutes. It wasn’t quite up to 160° yet, so I microwaved it for 3 minutes. I served it with some Middle Eastern chopped salad that one of the revelers left behind.
Not bad. It could have used a bit more seasoning.
Last night in review.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/01/27/the-joy-of-gemisch/
Last night was our 2019 French dinner. Since many of the churches we saw during our December trip to Paris were built in the Middle Ages (Saint-Denis, Notre Dame, Chartres, Sainte-Chapelle), we declared that this dinner would hew to the Medieval Diet.
So what is the Medieval Diet? We eliminated ingredients that French folk would not have had access to during the Middle Ages, as they were from the Western Hemisphere. A few examples of forbidden foods:
- Tomatoes
- Potatoes
- Corn
- Peppers
- Squash
Fortunately, our friends were up to the task. Julian made a stewed chicken dish with leeks, cinnamon, ginger, and grains of paradise. He also made an appetizer of chicken livers over greens with a red wine vinaigrette. I made rice and two Medieval apple tarts out of The Silver Palate Cookbook. I had some leftover apples, so I poached them in red wine with raisins and prunes. Because great minds think alike, our next door neighbor made red-wine-poached pears. Others brought beans, vegetables, wine, pâté, and cheeses.
Some folks took the Medieval theme beyond food. The aforementioned next door neighbor wore a Medieval-ish purple velvet dress and read tarot cards. The two youngest revelers also came in costume. The Known Teenager came in an outfit suitable for Joan of Arc. We showed photos of the trip and gave out door prizes to those who correctly counted the number of dogs (real or marble) in the slideshow. It was a festive evening.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/01/27/medieval-night/
Does anyone ever have enough counter space? The answer rumbles from galleys to Architectural Digest-worthy kitchens: HELL, NO!
I hypothesize that stuff expands to fit the amount of counter space in any given kitchen. People in tiny apartments are forced to store their countertop appliances under beds or in closets. A friend of mine in Manhattan collected cereal sets (turn of the 20th-century canister sets, often with Yiddish labels). Most of them had to stay in storage until she moved into her current co-op apartment. Now that my sister has downsized, her cookie jar collection is all over her flat. As kitchens get bigger, people feel freer to buy bigger things. The two-person rice cooker is traded for a larger, neuro-fuzzy-logic model. A small blender is replaced by a Vita Mix that barely fits under the upper cabinets. The single utensil crock turns into two utensil crocks. (We plead guilty to this last offense.)
I can count two homes where I had enough counter space. My first apartment in Dallas had plenty for one reason: I was poor and I only had a blender and a Moulinex La Machine. I also only had about 15 cookbooks at the time, but that’s another story. The house we rented during my postdoc in Dallas had a decent amount of counter space. This was because the kitchen had ample cupboards into which we could stuff things we didn’t use on a daily basis. It also had an antique European stove where we set the toaster oven. The second runner up was the house we rented in Seattle. While it was a glorified galley kitchen, the countertops were deep enough so the heavy-duty mixer and Cuisinart were out of the way.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, my main criterion for considering a new electric kitchen toy is if it deserves a place of honor on my counter. Most new things don’t pass the counter space test.
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2019/01/26/counter-intuitive/
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