The perfect day

I imagine that if I asked folks what constituted a perfect day, the number of different answers would equal the number of people asked. I have been fortunate to have a lot of really good days over the past 49 years but were any of them "perfect"? How would I know? Traveling to Mexico with Dean and Adam was the culmination of a year of planning and anticipation. That was a GREAT day but it wasn't what I'd call a perfect day. Nothing went wrong it just didn't meet my criteria of a perfect day. My criteria though is kind of nebulous. I only know it's a perfect day when it's all over and a certain feeling comes over me. I can best describe it as a deep sense of satisfaction with events of the day. I had a very good day last weekend and a perfect day yesterday. I'll describe them so you can get the gestalt of what I'm going on about.

Our friends Tony and Jeny won an item at a benefit auction. It gave them a weekend's use of a house about an hour-drive east of us overlooking the Trinity river. The way it worked out was that the ladies in the neighborhood would use the house Friday night and Saturday afternoon. The guys would have the house Saturday evening through Sunday afternoon. I arrived before Janine and last few other ladies left. J came up to me and said "You are NOT gonna believe this place." The house was indeed incredible, made even more so by it's location. The next 24 hours were an amazing mix of food, drink, hot tubbing, quad riding, rock skipping, food, drink and BSing. A few pictures will tell the tale better.

A view of the house from the river

Looking from the loft toward the kitchen

A morning view from the patio

The river directly below the house

Mike T grilling prawns with butter herbs and lots of garlic

Poker, cigars, beer and friends

8:00 AM Sunday

Me watching the sun rise on the Trinity river with a Bloody Mary in hand.

Yup, that was a great day but not a perfect day. It wasn't the hangover that kept it out of the top category but the lack of that certain feeling. Yesterday was different in every way. Janine and I had big plans to work around the place focusing on the greenhouse and garden. We started by going to the first Farmer's Market of the season. By evening we had rototilled the garden and planted the potatoes, beans, peas, carrots and beets. The greenhouse had been pressure washed inside and out. A 3' x 8' raised bed in the GH was shovelled full of soil and the dwarf citrus trees (ruby grapefruit, key lime and a Clementine) had been transplanted into it. The patio and front walk were pressure washed and ribs were grilled for dinner. The icing on the cake was to get online with Eric, Adam and Tim to play a few rounds of a game before snuggling into bed with J and a book. For me this was a perfect day. Why? I can't tell you exactly. Deep down I felt that sense of contentment that I associate with a perfect day. Alot of it had to do with Janine and I working together outside. Those are always among the best day's particularly if I don't show up at work Monday wearing a patchwork of bandaids (Yeah, I admit it, I'm a little clumsy...)

Easter Sunday was a pretty good day too. Janine had offered up our place for a grand Easter egg hunt while at last weekend's retreat with the ladies. This morning the fathers arrived at 9:30 to hide eggs. Later, 11 egg hunters (aged ~2-10) ran around for the better part of an hour to find their treasures. One funny moment occured when a group of lads and spotted a frog and for a few minutes all thoughts of easter eggs disapeared. Here are a few pictures to share the event.

Pre-egg hunt instructions

Snacks were served around the fire pit while the booty was perused.

Charlie with the most exciting find of the day, a frog.

Good News/Bad News

I had a six week followup appointment with the Urologist today. The good news is that my PSA, the marker for prostate cancer, is now undetectable.

The bad news is that I pretty much got my ass chewed for not being more aggressive at attempting to control the incontinence that followed the procedure. Honestly, I thought this was something that would just resolve with time. I mean I have seen SOME improvement.

Apparently not. As it was explained to me today, I have a window of opportunity to resolve the incontinence issue. Once that window closes, in say 12 months or so, the incontinence becomes a permanent issue ammenable only to further surgery. To prevent this I was taken off of work for two weeks with strict instructions to do this and that.

I got the message.

On the lighter side... Is it wrong to say that my Urologist was pissed off?

Kielbasa

A while back I remembered something from my childhood and it's been haunting me. It's a silly thing really, something my mom used to make when I was a kid. Mom worked full time as a nurse. At the end of the day there wasn't time to prepare a fancy meal. (Food TV hadn't come along to tell us otherwise.) Like a lot of women, Mom had a number of go-to meals, tasty things that were easy to prepare. Actual food too, not brown gravy covered stuff with Swanson on the label. There were things I liked and things I didn't. Somewhere along the line I developed a loathing for brussel sprouts that still makes me shudder.

What came back to me recently was a stupidly simple preparation that I remember clearly. Mom had a source for good quality Polish sausages. These were cooked then served with Van Camp's Pork and Beans. Thats the memory in a nutshell... the saltyiness of the sausage with the sweetness of the beans! Takes me right back. (There was probably a vegetable served with this but my memory appears to have selectively deleted this item.)

I don't have Mom's source for Polish sausages and the one's I can get are pretty inferior by comparison. I got it in my head to make my own. I bounced the whole idea off of Janine and freely admit I played the nostalgia card pretty heavily. I did that because I KNEW it wasn't anything she'd be interested in. To my surprise her eye's lit up and she said, "I love Pork and Beans, except for the pork." I was silent for a moment because it was SO unexpected. Seriously, how do you cohabitate for 24 years and not know a thing like this?

Anyway, I set out today to recreate an approximation of that old memory. I made 5 pounds of Kielbasa and placed them in the smoker with great anticipation. This is a slow procees. After smoking for an hour and a half the sausage is cooked in the same device to an internal temp of 150 degrees. The problem is that the temperature of the smoker can't exceed 170 F. Above that, fat renders to oil. Fat is important to sausage not just for flavor but to bind the meat together. If the fat all drips away what is left is a crumbly, unappetizing product. Definately NOT the stuff of memory.

A can of Pork and Beans awaits!


PS: Love is finding out cool new things about your wife that bring a smile to your face, even after 24 years.

Stuffing the casings

Kielbasa gettin' happy in the smoker.

Pulled Pork

On the long list of things that makes my life so deeply satisfying, barbecued meat has a special place near the top. I absolutely love the entire process of preparation, cooking and, of course eating. My dad is a master of the grill and I spent a great many evenings next to him flipping chicken or ribs as the scents etched themselves in memory. Being from California, I always thought of that as barbecuing. I was disabused of this several years ago by the good folks at Food TV. True barbecue is not the rapid cooking over hot coals I practiced as a kid. It is the magic that happens when meats are exposed to low heat over long periods of time. And that is the one and only point that aficionados of barbecue will agree on. As to what type of meat, how it is cut, seasoning or use of a sauce (if any), these are a matter of contention with huge regional differences through out the country. You'll find beef is king in Texas. Ribs are the favorite in the Midwest and a whole hog is often is a Southern BBQ pit. In the Carolinas though, the term barbecue conjures up images not of ribs, or beef brisket but of "pulled pork". Pulled pork was a new term for me. Essentially it is a pork shoulder that has been smoked and slowly cooked (12 to 18 hours is not unreasonable). The meat is then usually chopped or shredded, mixed with a vinegary BBQ sauce and served in a hamburger bun. Janine and I have found pulled pork to be much more versatile. Janine typically sheds the meat, divides it into ziplocks and pops it into the freezer. Later it is used to make incredible smoked pork tacos, enchiladas or even pulled pork eggrolls a-la Adam. This weekend's adventure turned out some of the best pork I have made. Here are a few pictures of the process.

Two pork shoulders seasoned and just placed in the Bradley smoker

After 4 hours of smoke, ~ 12 hours in the oven and being wrapped

with foil and a towel and allowed to "rest" for ~ 4 hours.

Let the shredding begin!

A Very Early Saturday Morning

I will concede that there are a few things in life worth getting up early for, fishing for example, particularly when the salmon are biting. This morning I added another to the short list activities worthy of sleep deprivation.

It is time for annual Aleutian geese migration. Aleutians were long thought to be extinct until an isolated colony was found on a remote Alaskan island. (An absolutely AMAZING story. Click here for a brief synopsis of it.) http://www.aleutiangoosefestival.org/comeback.html

In Humboldt county the geese overnight in huge flocks at the southern edge of the bay. They lift off within fifteen minutes before or after sunrise. The National Wildlife Refuge visitors area has trails that run adjacent to where the Aleutians rest. These afford the best vantage point but the gates don't open until 8:00, after the geese have left. For two days each March the NWR opens it's gates early so folks can be in place on the trails when the birds decide it's time to go. Janine has long wanted to see this so (with only a small groan from me) we were up by 5:00 for the 30 minute drive to the NWR. http://www.fws.gov/humboldtbay/index.html It was cold in the pre-dawn gloaming as a we and other hardy early risers waited. The geese were noisily honking 1/4 to 1/2 mile away. Suddenly the honking shifted to a higher pitch and moments later a thousand or so geese were airborn and headed our way. Amazingly this was not all of the geese nor the largest group. In fact, over the next 20 minutes we witnessed at least 7 flights take off from the same general area. The largest flock contained probably several thousand birds.

There is no way to explain this except with a bit of video. I appologize for the poor quality but it was shot in poor light with the digcam. Turn your speakers up!

On Frogs And Pubic Hair

I went back to work today exactly 1 month after surgery. You would think I'd post a nice inciteful piece on prostate cancer or surgical recovery. You would think that because you aren't familiar with the way my mind works. My wife, guided by 24 years of observation, has a pretty good bead on my faculties and she assures me that I am ummm... unique. And by unique I mean "touched" with a possible overlay of mild ADD. So, you will be spared a philisophical treatise on cancer survival and instead I will be going on about frogs and pubic hair.

Frogs

Janine and I share this chunk of land with deer, foxes, skunks, raccoons, numerous neighborhood cats, a zillion gophers, birds of every description, a variety of amphibians and a few snakes and lizards. Habitat is the key and our 3.5 acres has it all, a seasonal pond, a small wooded area and lots of garden area for the deer to graze on. (At least that is the deer's idea of the garden's purpose.) With the exception of the gophers all are welcome though the deer push the envelope of our hospitality to it's limit at times. Among this menagerie the frogs have somehow found a special place on the list. We have two resident varieties, the small green aptly named pacific chorus frog and the larger western red-legged frog. Janine and I will scan the ground ahead of us when riding the mower, stop, get off and relocate a wayward frog to prevent it from becoming an aerosol.

This has been a hard year for the frogs. Both species breed in the seasonal pond during the winter. After an initial burst of rain the frogs began laying eggs. The pond began to dry up as the rain slacked leaving egg clusters high and dry. My brother and his boys scooped as many as they could find and moved them to the deepest water in the hope that rain would appear before these areas too were dry. It became clear that drastic measures were needed when the last pool was only a few inches deep. I collected as many eggs as I could reasonably keep and divided them between two plastic garbage barrels full of water. A bit of pond weed thrown in and instant tadpole habitat was made. The eggs hatched and I my brother and I are now the guardians of a few hundred tadpoles each. The rains have started again and the pond is filling quickly. Our charges might be repatriated next weekend.

Pacific Chorus Frog

aka: Noisious aloticus

Pacific Red Legged Frog
aka: SPF insufficientus

Alligator lizard

Pepe'

Me holding a pissed-off furry flying friend

Pubic Hair

I saw a bit on BBC about a man in India who is trying to get the record for the world's longest hair. His beard in now 10 feet long and only needs another 10 feet or so to get the record.

Well, that got me to thinkin'...

When I had surgery a month ago they had to shave the area between navel and penis. The hair has now started to regrow and is a bit over 1/4 in long. (TMI I hear you scream. Bear with me please.) I pulled out the old calculator and ran some numbers... Assuming a constant rate of 1/4 inch per month since age 12, at age 49 my pubic hair should now be a little over 9 feet in length. It was nothing of the sort. I know, it's a silly observation but what the heck is that about?

Sadly, thats all I have to blog about...

Charcuterie

I've found alot of interests over the years such as making beer, martial arts and playing the fiddle to name a few. Most arrive with a burst of enthusiasm that gradually fades. I haven't brewed a batch of ale or stout in years. My violin keeps calling to me but I have realized I don't have the dedication to practice needed to rise above mediocrity and so playing is more of a frustration than a pleasure. Lack of conviction, sheer lazyness or attention deficit disorder... however you want to frame it, that has been my M. O.

I mention the above only so you will understand my surprise when I found an interest that has not only stuck but deepened. Enter charcuterie. Charcuterie is the french word for the art of salting, smoking and curing food, particularly meat. It encompasses everything from the simple process of making fresh sausage like "breakfast" or Italian sausage, cured and smoked products like andouille or kielbasa and, the holy grail of charcuterie, dried fermented sausages like salami and Spanish chorizo's.

Homemade home-smoked country style bacon

It's not just the process that fascinates me but the history. Charcuterie was a way to use of every part of the animal efficiently and also a means of preserving food. Not surprisingly, sausages strongly reflect their culture of origin. The temperature and humidity determined how meat could be safley preserved, geography and climate what spices were available. Even religious influences are seen with sausages from Muslim areas using lamb instead of pork.

Bresaola (an herb-cured dried beef loin)

Bresaola dinner. The meat is sliced very thin then drizzled with olive oil, lemon juice and bit of freshly ground pepper.

Making sausage is a little dance with death for meat at room temperature can easily play host to a plethora of bad actors such as botulism, shigella, campelobacter and e. coli. The longer the meat is going stay at room temp the greater the risk. Fresh sausage that will be refrigerated and eaten in a couple of days is less problematic than salami that that will hang around desicating for a few months. I cured two proscuitto hams that hung drying in the garage for a year. I passed them so often that I named them Dean and Adam after a couple of other hams I know. The salami and coppa pictured below are still drying. They were made in early January.

Salami and coppa drying

The best part of the whole process is sharing the goodies. The guys came over last night to watch the fights. I made and cased 10 pounds of Italian sausage yesterday (5 # each of spicy and sweet) for Italian sausage sandwiches. All 10 pounds of sausage disappeared. Janine made peanut butter and key lime pies for dessert.

Five pounds of spicy Italian sausage ready to mix.

All ten pounds on the grill.

Satisfied customers!