Christmas vacation in Oregon

We've just returned from Christmas vacation in Oregon - it was a blast! There were many highlights  -  opening gifts at my son Arthur's home in Portland, a trip to Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood,



catching up with Arthur, my daughter-in-law Allie, and my grandson Jack,


and spending quality time together with extended family. It's an 11 to 12 hour drive each way from Oakland to Portland. Can be brutal, but the weather was great and we took our time. Mary, Marja, Wayne, and I made the trek in Marja's royal blue Prius, packed to the gills with suitcases, coats, boots, and gifts. Fun was had by all!

Hope you had a happy Christmas too!

 

Feet up!

Are your dogs tired? Here's a terrific thing I've just learned at yoga for those of us who are on our feet too much (whew, bartending for 6 or more hours at a stretch gets more challenging every year).

The solution: Put your feet up in the air when you get home.

Best way is to lay on your back and snuggle your butt up to a wall, then lean your feet up the wall. 

Next best way is to just lay on your back and put your feet straight up in the air without the wall (see photo).

The benefits:

• All that blood that's been pooling in your feet flows back into your legs and body
• The bones and muscles of your poor little feet get a break from all the pressure of having your body weight concentrated on their small surface
• This helps avoid varicose veins by reversing the blood pressure in your legs
• It's totally easy to do
• It feels great!

 

Turkey stock

I made 3 quarts of turkey stock tonight. The turkey has bit the dust for this year. It was a really good one - thank you, Turkey!

Here's what I did:

• Cut most of the meat off the turkey and put it in the fridge (...I'm so over turkey - happens every year)
• Chopped the carcass into 3 or 4 pieces
• Put it all in a big pot with a cut up red onion and 4 cut up carrots.
• Added 3 quarts water and some bay leaf and thyme.
• Brought it to a simmer.  Simmer is important - no boiling!
• Simmered for two hours. Looked for scum, but for some reason this turkey didn't produce any. Would have skimmed it off if I'd seen it.
• After two hours I turned off the stove and let it cool down while we ate dinner (not turkey - we had corn chowder and salad).
• Strained it all through the big strainer into two large bowls. It smells good!
• Will let sit overnight to cool, and will remove fat, if there is any. Then I'll spoon it into quart freezer bags, label, and freeze.
  
  

I'll use it just like I'd use chicken stock - for soup, or beans, or risotto.

In fact, tonight I asked myself - why don't I make my own chicken stock instead of buying it? It's not hard. And who even knows what commercial chicken stock is? Maybe I will.

It's almost Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving week, and today I'm going to start cooking. First, I'm going shopping. Then I'll salt the turkey and brine it in the downstairs fridge until Thursday. I'll make cranberry sauce too today, and that will be enough. At least I'll have those two tasks out of the way.

We're having 8 for dinner on Thursday - both family and friends and friends of family. It will be fun! If you'd like to take a look at recipes for some of the side dishes I'll be serving, click here. That'll connect you to my cooking blog Two for Dinner, where you'll find recipes for Cauliflower Sformato, Candied Sweet Potatoes, Cranberry Sauce, Kale Salad, Wilted Spinach Salad, and Bread Stuffing.

Of course there are many other recipes on my cooking blog that don't have anything to do with Thanksgiving. You might like some of them, and we give thanks for all good food, don't we?!

Have a wonderful holiday! I hope you're as lucky as I am, and get to spend it with family and friends. I'm thankful for them, and for your friendship, and for our lives of bounty and plenty.

Into the wild

Yeah, I know I've been absent. It's that time of year. I've been so darn busy I hardly have time to ....well, you know.

Anyway, more on this later. I just looked at a blog that a lovely lively young 20-something lady named Jeanna is putting up called 50 Food Truck Dates. Jeanna got tired of the truly tiresome old dating scene - how is it this hasn't really changed in the 40-some years since I was that age????? - of waiting for some hopefully-cool guy to chat you up in a bar, or waiting for answers to your match.com emails (well, that's changed, but it's still basically the same thing). So unbelievably boring. She decided to take matters in her own hands and have a little fun and adventure while looking for love. Take a little read, and keep on reading past the first part until you get to the "philosophical" part where she talks about what she's up to with her project and life. What a smart smart young lady!

And what does this have to do with me or you? I say it doesn't matter what your situation is - whether you're still or again lookin' for love, or whether you've found your soul-mate and that's where you're staying - life is meant to be lived to the fullest. Ask my friend Beppy, who went for a walk in her neighborhood last week and got run over by a car coming out of a driveway. And died, age 59. Live, people!!! Have fun!! Act as if there will be no tomorrow, because there just might not be.

So here it is http://the50dates.com/food-truck-date-25-wild/.  You go, Jeanna! Remind us how to do it.

Off to Florida

 I'm leavin' on a jet plane tomorrow for Tampa/Clearwater, Florida, for a few days to visit my friend Donna. We're planning four solid days of good music on the beach at the Clearwater Jazz Holiday, something we've done nearly every year for quite a few - nearly 20 years I think.

This year we'll see Chicago (remember them?), Jane Monheit, Larry Carlton, Average White Band, Tower of Power (Oakland's own!), Brandi Carlile - it's going to be fabulous!

We always have a wonderful relaxing time and lots of fun. It's warm and tropical in Florida this time of year - not too hot like it is in the middle of summer. It's our habit to eat grouper sandwiches or a grouper salad at least once, and the drink of choice is a Cuba Libre (Mt. Gay rum and diet coke with a squeeze of lime - yum).

I'm excited to see Donna again! Isn't it good to have a girls' weekend once in awhile? I think so - gives you a break from regular life and makes you appreciate what you have even more when you get back. Yeah. Buon viaggio to me!!

Wolves, and Dave

Yesterday Wayne and I drove to Sacramento. There was to be a hearing to hear comments from the public on the Fish and Wildlife Bureau's proposal to take the Grey Wolf off the list of endangered species protected by law.

Wayne was going to speak against taking wolves off the list. He has had four wolf-hybrids (wolf-malmute combinations) as part of his family, and he learned to love and respect them for their intelligence, loyalty, and family-oriented pack culture. He is appalled, as most people are, by Montana's, Idaho's, and Wyoming's wholesale slaughter of wolf families.

Anyway, the hearing did not take place because of the government shutdown, but we did take the opportunity to talk with a lot of like-minded people and to learn what we can do to help wolves survive humans. Honestly, when will we learn not to kill everything in front of us? All of today's domestic dogs, a.k.a. man's best friends, are originally descended from wolves, but that only happened about 7000 years ago. In caves from previous eras, wolf remains have been found guarding entrances to rooms and many wolf and human remains have been found together.

Wolves are a beautiful part of wild nature, and they are necessary predators in a healthy eco-system. They have co-existed and shared food with and guarded humans for over 200,000 years. They deserve to have our protection now while they rebuild their numbers after decades of slaughter.

Then today I learned that my old friend Dave VanThull has died. I worked with Dave for many years. He was an early computer genius, innovative and creative and always willing to share his knowledge. He was also a 4 handicap golfer (golfing friends will know that means he was a great golfer!) and he was a good man who loved and cared for his family. The cruel irony is that he died from brain cancer, brilliant man that he was. It doesn't seem right. Or fair. RIP Dave.

Often these days, I hear of friends and people I've known dying. I guess we're in that age group. None of us knows how many days we have left to enjoy. We have to make every day count.