Recipe: Christmas Dinner in Thirty Minutes or Less (The Feast of Three Fishes*)

Did you ever make pomanders as a kid? Remember how much those pokey cloves hurt your fingers? Clever adults use a lobster pick or other implement to poke pilot holes, first.

When you decide at 12:30 pm on December 24 that you’ll host dinner on December 25, you’re going to have to throw money at the problem. That means shellfish.  Since you’ll need to have grocery shopping, cookies for tonight, and cake for tomorrow all completed, and be showered (bonus!), coiffed (hah!), and out of the house by 4:00 pm to attend your Christmas Eve festivities, plan on making, rolling, and filling the Russian Cigarette cookies promised to your Christmas Eve hostess with one hand, while mixing up a cheesecake with the other. And I do mean this literally. The cookie crumbs that fall into the top of the cheese cake will be covered up by cherries, so don’t fret.   And because you simply can't survive one more year without those anise-seed Christmas cookies of your childhood, mix up a batch of those, too.  Oh, and cook an artichoke, so you don’t have to do it tomorrow. They take a while.  Finally, praise the deity of your choice with hearty song on high when your still warm cheesecake remains steadfastly in its pan, despite your 4:15 pm unscheduled tire squealing collision avoidance maneuver.  Don’t forget to pop the cheesecake in the fridge before the Sugar Plum Faeries do their dance, but let it cool to room temperature first.

Ready, set… GO!

T-30 min: Set a big pot with a few inches of water to boil.  Dump a half jar of the sour cherries you preserve each summer in a small pot with some of their juice, a bit of lemon, sugar, and cornstarch.  Set over medium flame, stirring as often as your hands are free of other things.  Rinse and section out king crab legs.  Waste 15 seconds or so pondering just how seriously big of sea beast this thing was,  then swear at it when its sharp shell slits your finger open.  Band-Aid, STAT!  Glass of wine, STAT! Do take a brief moment to savor the drama and excitement of it all.  The cherries are boiling now. After a minute or so of this, pour them - schloop! - into the nearest appropriate container.  Put it on ice.  The big pot is boiling now.  Sling the crab legs into it, and cover. Work in a snap and twirl to for effect.  Yank the leaves - pop! pop! pop! - off the artichoke you cooked last night, and smear the base of each one with a dollop of spicy, garlicky cream cheese.  Oh, right, you mixed up the cream cheese yesterday, too.

T-25 min: Pull out the crab legs from the pot and throw them into a colander whilst doing the "Gah! HotHot!" dance.  Dump and rinse the pot, avoiding a steam burn as best you can. If you forget to save a bit of the crab leg broth for two steps from now, you won't really miss it.  It was a bit too salty, anyway. Set the pot back on the burner, add olive oil, a lump of the garlic you prepped and froze earlier (because you hate prepping garlic on a daily basis), paprika, and slices of the Russian sausage “Babcia” gave you last night. Sausage is forbidden in the traditional feast of any number of fishes, but desperate people do desperate things, and, well... sausage!  Sauté for a full precious minute while you keep on keepin' on with those artichoke leaves. Dump a jar of tomatoes, that almost gone bottle of white wine at the back of the fridge, a quarter of the onion you were slicing for the salad (yes, you are also preparing a green salad), a bay leaf, and some cayenne into the big pot. Rethink. Take chances. More cayenne. Wish you had some spinach on hand to toss in at the last second, but don’t waste too much time here.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to the slightest simmer or less. You will come back to this later.**

T-20 min: Arrange the artichoke leaves artfully on a platter, put a caper on each one (because the jarred roasted sweet red peppers you found in Pilot Guy's fridge don't taste all that good, pretty as they may be), and sprinkle with smoked paprika. (Under the gun, you can do this incredibly rapidly. Trust me.) There. You have an artichoke sunflower on the table, should people arrive early.  Nuke butter with more of that frozen garlic in two little espresso cups, and set them on a platter with the drained crab legs. Oops! Pilot Guy is not equipped with crab cracking instrumentation. It’s easy to slit each side of the legs with kitchen scissors, but it will cost you two, possibly three, precious minutes.

T-15 min: Meanwhile, Pilot Guy is making fondue from a kit. Scorn the kit, but admit the ingredient list is suspiciously…. fondue like. Imagine that! His maneuver is approved.  Fire directives at him: toast bread cubes! Not too much! Cut up the apples we got at the orchard! (Oops, never posted about the orchard run.)  Set out olives and pickles! No, not those, these! Go! Go!  He complies with a knowing smile, sweet man that he is.

T-10 min: The cherries are cool. Maybe too cool. Nuke for 10 seconds. Chicken out and remove them at 8 seconds. Unmold the cheesecake pan side, but leave the cake on the pan bottom, because you just don’t dare at this point. Set it directly on the cake stand, instead, and pour the cherries on top. Allow them to spill over just so. My God, but those are good. Put the whole thing back into the fridge, and be good and smug about it, because you were clever enough to re-position all the space hogging beer bottles earlier today. Ta da! Should the slightly too soft cake collapse later under the weight of the cherries when you’re doing battle with a stuck fridge drawer, no matter. Tomorrow you can slap the creamy heart of the leftovers into martini glasses, poke in a Russian Cigarette, call it parfait, and pretend you meant to do that. My God, (again), but that is good.

Disaster recovery plan

T-5 min:  Finish a simple salad of greens and thinly sliced radishes and onions. Have at the ready the nice vinaigrette your friend made and gave you for Christmas last week, and also that speech your mom makes every single time about how the French eat salad***, since she won’t be there to make it herself. Pop bread in to warm.

Ding Dong! Pop the champagne cork, snap a hasty photo, and high five with Pilot Guy.  You did it!

Not a pretty photo, this is purely for documentation. It's the only course that got photographed, so you'll just have to believe me on the rest of it.  Thirty Minutes or Less does not include time for food styling or even proper exposure settings.

*A hasty version of the southern Italian tradition of La Vigilia, or “Feast of Seven Fishes,” in which seven or more seafood dishes and/or fishes are served before Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.  With a little more thought, surely we could work in the other four?  See below for the two fishes I haven't explained yet.
**Start with the fondue, artichoke sunflower, crab legs, and champagne. When it’s time to move to the table, crank up the heat on the big pot, while Pilot Guy clears the dishes. Throw in a heap of mussels and little neck clams. You bought every last one from the store yesterday. <tap tap> Yep, they're still alive - don't prepare dead ones! The clams go in 1-2 minutes ahead, as they take a little longer. When the shellfish open, retrieve and toss the quarter onion, pour the shellfish and spicy rich broth in a big wide bowl, sprinkle with fresh herbs, and serve with crusty, warm bread and that green salad. 
*** Make the dressing: a proper vinaigrette of shallots, mustard, salt and pepper, and oil and vinegar (never balsamic!) in the bottom of an overly large bowl. Cross the business ends of your salad tossing and serving devices in the bowl, and place your plain greens – nothing else! – on top. Okay, thinly sliced onions and radishes are allowed, but nothing else! Not like those ridiculous American salads.   (Optional: insert discourse on composed vs. tossed salads here.)  Oh, wait, sometimes blue cheese crumbles are permissible as well, especially if you want to combine the cheese and salad courses, but nothing else!  Salad is eaten last, not first!, and gets tossed just before serving. Unless, of course, you're eating it with quiche, in which case, it may (must!) be eaten with the quiche, but that's another set of rules. See how the greens don’t get soggy while waiting?  Salad and pasta can never be over-tossed! (To be fair, that’s my own personal addition to the system, and by this I mean no amount of tossing will be too much. Toss! Toss! Be sure to appoint someone else for this particular part of the rite, then hover over the victim and correct his technique.  Ditto for cake and pie serving.)  P.S. Mom’s way really is the best way!

Amuse-Bouche: Tidbit from the Air

When you get scolded via email by a reader (I have readers??) for not having posted in waaaay tooo looong, it’s time to write.  I’m at least two good sized moto tours further behind than usual, including but not limited to: the Ducati’s first ferry crossing, a hunt for Chimayo chiles, a Huckleberry Helicopter ride, an embarrassingly slow run of my beloved Highway 12, another Ducati mechanical mishap (two, really, if you’re counting), a fruit stand campsite, and then – even better!- an actual orchard campsite, getting detained at an international border, saving a goat, and - oh, right - and milking a sheep. (Really).  But I – let’s all say it together, now! – “haven’t had time to write.”  I know, I know…

So here’s a quick post that has something to do with neither motorcycles nor food, unless you count lunch at Chicken Nuevo*, my guilty little secret, located conveniently close to the airport.
I had my first “Air-to-Air” photography gig last weekend!** For you and me, that means shooting, er, I mean photographing, airplanes in the air from – yes! – another airplane.

Let me begin by reminding you that I’m in no way a professional photographer***.  No, I’m not even a rabid amateur one. I don’t even own a decent camera. If fact, every time I’m ready to buy a decent camera, some disaster happens, like my car self destructing, or my beagle needing high dollar surgery, or, most recently, my former tenants trashing my house.  Evidently the universe is telling me, quite loudly, that I should really stop camera shopping.  So I was, despite being friendly with a few pilots, a teensy bit surprised to have this activity come my way. “Really??? Yeeeeahhh!”

A real aerial photographer would insist that the doors be removed from the platform aircraft, and wear a special safety harness, such that she (or he) not fall out of the bumping and rolling formation flying aircraft.  Said real aerial photographer might even be able to hang out of said platform aircraft to optimize angles and such, which sounds wickedly fun.  I want to be a real aerial photographer!  Not having a harness, I opted for the more conservative doors-on configuration.  The blue tinted, scratched, light reflecting windows were a challenge that marred, oh, say 90% of the photos beyond repair. A good 9% of those remaining were ruined by the simple fact that I don’t really know what I’m doing.

Camera vs. microphone made communication with pilots in both aircraft difficult.  Higher! No! Lower! Say again?

But the pilots did know what they were doing, thank goodness, because formation flying requires adept communication and piloting skills.  Our “photo mission”, as it was reported to Air Traffic Control, consisted of our platform aircraft (Cessna 205), and five subject aircraft (two Cessna Citation Jets, one Beechcraft/Raytheon Premier Jet, a Beechcraft King Air, and a Beechcraft Baron, if you care about such things.)  It helps if your platform aircraft is as fast as or faster than the subjects, but we made do.

Even light turbulence presents a challenge, it turns out. A real aerial photographer would have an awesome and gyroscopically stabilized camera, and the biceps to hold all that gear up for hours.  Instead, my borrowed camera and I just bumped around a lot, as we twisted ourselves into various contorted forms. And since the photos were requested, you know, NOW, I had to cull and edit on the fly. (Hah!) Delicate lap top mousing is also difficult even in light turbulence, as it turns out.  I even got a little queasy staring at the screen too long.
 

High speed editing… on the fly.

It was all wildly fun, and surprisingly exhausting.  Here’s a sampling of my, no, our,**** work over the two or three hours we spent in the air.

Citation Jet No. 1.  Meh.

Twin engine prop planes are far more photogenic. (Beechcraft Baron)

Beechcraft/Raytheon Premier Jet

Beechcraft King Air

Citation Jet Number Two 

Bye, Bye, Citation Number Two!

Coincidentally, when we returned to earth, and were refueling, I stumbled across this magazine article, which describes the topic better than I do.

Three pilots, one photographer, six planes, hundreds of gallons of fuel… it was not a day to be proud of my carbon footprint.

* Don’t let the fast food atmosphere fool you.  It’s actually… good!
**Imagine that!
***Evidently someone on the ground mistook me for a well known (in the field, anyway) aerial photographer, not by my photos, to be sure, but by the combination of my appearance, I guess, and the fact there was a camera hanging around my neck.
****Not your usual landscape photography, it was a team sport to be sure.

A Wedge of Cheese, an Ounce of Courage (Rockhill Creamery Visit)

Remember Pete the Cheese Guy?

As you probably know, behind every good cheese, lies… a productive ungulate.





Last week, I got to meet the little herd that supplies Cache Valley (and more than one chef in Jackson, WY) with its very own artisanal raw milk aged cheeses.

Being a cheese enthusiast (and who isn’t?), as well as having just made a batch of (amateur) cheese myself the week before, I was quite excited to mount the Ducati and head up to Richmond.  This visit was long overdue!

Arrival! A flower and vegetable garden greets visitors.

Pete was incredibly generous with his time, showing me all around his wonderful operation. Everything was spotless and well tended, with a cheerful air about it.  Jennifer smiled at me from the window of the cheese making room and pointed out Pete’s tiling handiwork: golden wedges of cheese tumbling across the walls. Their work in restoring the 1893 James & Amy Burnham Farmstead to a working micro-dairy not only provides us great gastronomic reward,  but won them a  National Preservation Award in 2011.

There’s something contemplative, even meditative about making cheese: warming the milk to the correct temperature, one degree at a time, stirring gently, gently; patiently waiting during the culturing and renneting of the milk; carefully cooking, draining, and pressing the curds; flipping and washing the rounds; and the long, long wait, as the cheese ages.   Good cheese whisperers don’t make magic happen, as much as lovingly create the conditions that allow it to happen*. It’s an art best left to the gentle-spirited and patient, and Pete and Jennifer fit the bill.

The creamery hosts an apprentice**, who gets to live above the cheese cave. Oh, midnight snack!  Also residing in the cave is the work of just six Brown Swiss ladies. Each one produces some 50-80 pounds of milk a day, allowing Pete and Jennifer to make 200 pounds of cheese a week.  Some of the wheels will rest here for well over a year, becoming ever more delicious by the day.

To be fair, my photo barely shows half of the cheese wheels in the aging room.  Higher math indicates we can only hold three cows accountable.

But the girls won’t work for free. In addition to enjoying open pastures, they eat hay. Lots of it.

From sunlight comes cheese, via grass, cows, milk, and microflora.  Think upon this next time you savor a golden, creamy wedge.

I confessed a little phobia of mine to Pete.  I’m not at all fond of bovine encounters on the hiking trail.  Just this week, I had to run the gauntlet no fewer than three times. The amount of courage I need to summon in such situations is not insubstantial.  Unlike most wildlife, whose intentions of flight or predation are well communicated, cows just stare at you. For a long time. Menacing? Dumb? For the inexperienced, it can be hard to tell.  But look at me today!

Cows are anvil heads.  Pete was good enough to remind me more than once to keep my own blockhead out of Ella's way, lest she shake at a fly, and put me out of work for a week. Thunk!  I don't need another head injury just yet.

My victory ride down Blacksmith Canyon was met with a terrible sign: “Loose Gravel, Next 12 Miles.”  The Ducati and I stayed disappointingly and cautiously vertical. But my hunk of Zwitser Gouda didn’t seem to mind.

Aged at least 12 months. So delicious!

The Rockhill Creamery Farmstand is open to the public on Saturday mornings during the warmer months, and hosts the Richmond Harvest Market.  Do pay them a visit!

*For a truly beautiful and touching description of cheese making and pastoral life, read “Goat Song,” by Brad Kessler.
**Hm.  A germ of an idea forms. UPDATE: Yep, two years later I followed through on that thought. First post from the farm is here.

Lost River Range – Found!

My packing is going  exactly as it went one year ago to the day. The GoPro mount is fiddly-fussy, and seems intent on keeping me from actually steering the Ducati, no matter what configuration of awkward connector pieces I choose. The day is getting on, and I’m this close to tossing the irritating contraption in the top box to deal with later.    A shift in my schedule has blessed me with an unexpected three day weekend, and I intend to use it. I recall my regret from last year, swear softly, and persevere.  The sun is high in the sky by the time the jumble of pieces takes a usable, if not ideal form, but this year, the Lost River* Range will not go unphotographed.

I cross the border into Idaho, and the landscape subtly shifts.  The valley is tilting this way and that in a dizzying fun-house sort of way.  Were it not for the lush grasses and smattering of farm houses, one would think the extinct volcanoes surrounding me had burst through the earth’s crust in a cataclysmic event some time around last Tuesday.  But all is quiet.

I’ve got a great tail wind, but I don’t realize it until I take a slow left hand turn into my first gas stop.  An invisible hand pushes the Ducati to a lean angle unsustainable at its slow speed. I catch it with my foot, but had I been on a taller bike, I probably would be spending the next few minutes unloading it, picking it up, and inspecting the damage.   I pull up to the lee side of a gas pump, but it doesn’t seem to help. When I dismount, I’m practically pinned to the bike by the wind. We’re holding each other up now, and I don’t know how to even begin the complicated maneuver of removing a glove, extracting a credit card, and filling the tank without at least one of us falling over.  I struggle to reposition the loaded bike at a better angle, and manage, but barely. I take a deep breath and dart 100 miles across the Snake River Plain in the crosswind.

It seems I am not the only one affected by the wind.  In a real life cinematic freeze frame moment, all time, sound, and motion abruptly stop. I’m face to face, eye to eye, with a hawk.  For a split second that feels like minutes, we contemplate each other from our surprisingly short range perspective. This huge bird can’t be more than two feet directly in front of me. Then, just as abruptly, the tape rolls again, now in double-time. I duck down, the hawk swoops upward, and the encounter is over before it began. I wonder how the hawk’s experience compared with mine.

It’s raining now, and the streets are flooded.  I motor slowly, carefully, through small running rivers at every turn.  Splashing arcs of water land directly in my boots and just as soon as I wipe my visor, it’s covered in raindrops again.

By the time I reach Joe T. Fallini Campgound at the Mackay Reservoir, the sun is shining through the clouds.

From one side of my tent, I see this:




And from the other, this:

I reflect on my last blog post as I pour the water out of my boots. Heat, cold, rain, flooding, all in the first 100 miles. Yep, it’s good to be touring again!

I’ve been feeling hurried since February, and I’ve no intent on feeling that way this morning. My plan is to ride around, somewhere, for a while, and get back to camp before the afternoon thunderstorms pop.  Maybe I’ll loop around the Sawtooth Mountains, maybe I’ll finally take that dip in Sunbeam Springs, or perhaps I’ll investigate the valley to the east of the Lost River Range. It really doesn’t matter, because every direction is a win around here.

Remembering yesterday’s wind, I reinforce my tent with guy wires, and a few rocks for good measure.  I gear up, mount up, and the Ducati decides to point north.

It’s not soon before I realize my heart is simply not equipped to process beauty at this order of magnitude.  It hurts. I want to know this land intimately, in a way that would take a lifetime, or even generations. Every creek, and every flowering meadow, the song of every bird, the view from each towering peak, the texture of the boulders sprinkled in the river below me, the hiding places of its tender spring greens, earthy mushrooms, and sweet berries… I want to simultaneously savor it all slowly, and gobble it up, in the way I want to eat an entire pie, bursting each tangy sweet just picked cherry between my teeth, letting its juices tingle my tongue, and then finishing the rest of it, directly, no fork involved, as a blue ribbon winning pie eating contestant.

I need to distract myself, so my mind turns to the fresh asphalt before me.  I downshift, release the clutch just so, and seek the edge of my rear tire.  I’m a swallow racing the river around each sweeping bend.  But it offers little reprieve.  I’m simply trading one agonizing form of joy for another.  Later, I’ll vomit words into my notebook, but the relief will be temporary. Before I’ve ridden only a few miles again, the bile of useless ineffective words will rise up in my brain.
It’s only recently occurred to me to ask gas station attendants for dining recommendations, but it’s starting to seem like a good strategy. As I step into Bertram’s Brewery in Salmon, ID**, I notice there’s a “Juis Suis Charlie” sign in the window. I chat with the equestrians, motorcyclists, and pilots seated around me, and enjoy delicious, if not Baja-Certified-Authentic, fish tacos. I like this place!
The ghosts of Lewis and Clark beckon from the Montana border.  It’s just a short ride away, and I want to test my own skills on the same mountain passes that proved so formidable to them in 1805.  But the stormy clouds in the sky direct me back south, and I pass, for the second time today, the sign proudly declaring “45th Parallel. Halfway between the Equator and North Pole!”  It’s okay, August and I have big plans.

It may not look like it, but I'm pointed to the good weather in this photo.

I’ve got time to wander around the “Battleground Cemetery***” north of the reservoir when I get back, and chat with two huckleberry picking ATM riders, and their dachshund riding buddies.

I get back to camp, confirm my tent is still standing, and prepare to ride into Mackay for some groceries.  My trip was hastily planned, and there’s not enough food left in the top box for both dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow.  The group next to me extends an dinner invite. “Why, yes, I think I would like to join you!” Dutch oven cooking is a formidable skill and these people have mastered it.  The meat is tender, the vegetables flavorful, and there’s just enough bacon added to make it sing savory songs in my mouth.

We look across the water into the hills directly west, and – Lo! – It’s the Ghost Horse of Mackay Reservoir!  He’s been living out there, wild, for over a decade. Another camp neighbor offers his binoculars. There’s no question now. A white horse has wandered down the hill for an evening graze upon the green grass alongside the reservoir. I squint a bit. Could it be… a unicorn?

Yes, the white speck on the edge of a water is a horse.

My dining companions are fascinating company, and remind me a bit of musicians, doing all manner of odd things to make ends meet. This week,  they’re a paving crew, waiting out the daily rain to begin work. Other months of the year, they drive sugar beet trucks from field to Paul, ID, home of the biggest sugar beet processing plant in the US. (And you thought Idaho just grew potatoes.) Like bees to the hive, they scurry back and forth in a frenzy, feeding our country’s addiction to sugar.  Veritable mountains are moved on a daily basis.  One camper is a former ski instructor and published author. I share equine photos with a woman who has a side business as a farrier.  A third camper shows off clever little inventions put together in his spare time.  Another tells of how, inexplicably, he is paid twice as much to transport beets as he was paid to transport school children in a yellow bus.  On my way out the next morning, I’ll be delayed by a paving crew. I know they’re not my friends from the night before, but I think upon them warmly. From now on, paving delays will bring me fond memories of these good people.

The light is different tonight on the mountains.

When I return home, GoPro photos (most of which prominently feature my gloved index finger) and Lost River Range panoramas aside, I’ll have done nearly nothing to capture the reality of this ride.

My eyes are drooping, even before it’s dark. I stick my arm out my tent to capture tonight’s subtle sunset.

This trip home seems to be about picking up loose ends.  I stop at Pickle’s Place, home of not just the Atomic Burger****, but John’s Steak and Seasoning Spice as well. I’ve been curious about this little roadside stop in the past, and I need both breakfast and to charge my phone, which has decided not to work at ambient temperatures below 50F.

World Potato Museum? The Ducati and I come to an abrupt stop.

The place is packed!

There are informative panels on the history, farming, (potatoes are often grown in rotation with sugar beets, which explains a thing or two!),  and processing of the world’s favorite tuber; impressive collections of potato mashers, peelers, farming implements, and Mr. Potato Heads; and, of course, a wildly outdated constantly looping film. I find myself hoping I get a free potato upon exit. I do, sort of...

I take in a few other points of interest that I’ve never stopped at before.

Red Rock Pass is a two-for-one deal. To see an overlook of the pass, you climb up the steep stairs of Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association Marker No. 119, dedicated to Mormon Battalion Caption Jefferson Hunt.

Here, the ancient Lake Bonneville burst forth, flooding the Snake River Plain.

The Battle of Bear River has been aptly renamed to The Bear River Massacre.   An estimated 450 Shoshone were killed here in 1863.  There is a nice interpretive site on a small hill overlooking the area.  It’s hard to think about, even now.

It's difficult to imagine violence in this peaceful, green valley.

I take a final detour victory lap to Bear Lake for lunch. After the informative video at the Potato Museum, my menu choice is obvious.

*Why is it lost? Both the Big and Little Lost Rivers dive underground at the Big and Little Lost Rivers sinks near Arco, ID.  They emerge again about 100 miles downstream at Thousand Springs, near Hagerman, ID.
**”Birthplace of Sacajawea!”
***Battleground Cemetery
**** From the menu: “Arco, Idaho, became the first city in the world to be lighted by atomic energy on July 17th, 1955.” Atomic City, ID is not far away, nor is the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 Atomic Museum.

Touring: Why We Do It

(Annual Migration 2015…. errr, Return Migration 2013)

The pain of this year’s Annual Migration can be summed up in one photo.



Even worse, not one of my motorcycles is here in Utah with me. (Yet.)

So, I’ll sit and dream for a bit, I guess.

To date, I’ve been reluctant to pay tribute to heart-lifting exuberance, the melancholy sweetness, the humbling wonder that is motorcycle touring, because, frankly, I’m not equipped to do so. The lonely open road? The wind through your... helmet?  The majesty of the American West?  These phrases are both terribly trite and painfully insufficient.  Why do I ride for hundreds of miles a day, often in heat, cold, rain, and discomfort, anyway?  For my Annual Return Migration, 2013, Pilot Guy followed me home in my Fearsome Toyota.  Turns out he wasn’t just driving, but snapping photos of me, too.  Elusive words, you fail me! This! This! These photos say everything I can not.

El Capitan/Agathla Peak, near Kayenta, AZ

Sonoran Reina de la Noche (Consolation Prize No. 2)

If you saw last post, you know I’ve decided to spend my usual spring motorcycle play time in a voluntary musical incarceration*.  My consolation prize?  Bacon.

This weekend, the Sonoran Desert brought me a second consolation prize. I’ve lived in Tucson for enough years to lose count, and I’ve never witnessed “Bloom Night.”  I’ve simply always skipped town by the then**.

Peniocereus greggii, a type of night blooming cereus, looks like a dead scrappy twig for 364.5 days of the year***.  But after sundown, on one sole, mysterious, synchronous, meta-bloom**** noche, she is the Sonoran Queen of the Night.    Somehow, all the plants in the area know…. tonight’s the night!  Her goal? To be pollinated by the Hawk Moth. Oh, sweet signal-scent, filling the night!  Oh, secretive and wondrous desert!

No one knows how she knows… and I have no idea how the staff at Tohono Chul, keeper of the largest collection of these special cacti, knows when to declare Bloom Night. But they do, and send a silent call through the air*****, a bit like the flowers themselves, just a few hours before the first petals begin to open. Hundreds of people cancel their plans and flock to the gardens to witness the event. And, finally, I was one of them.

Because of the crowds, getting good photographs of the event is nearly as tricky as photographing sun beams in Antelope Canyon (oops, haven’t published that one yet!).  I did manage a few though, so you wouldn't be stuck scratching your head over the silly painting shown above.  Here's a slideshow of the real thing.  Enjoy!

*It seemed like a good idea at the time?
** Not a bad plan. It’s supposed to be 109F here all week.
***I recently learned that underneath those gangly awkward twigs, lies a large turnip type root. My first question, “Can you eat it?,” remains unanswered.
****My neighbor's phrase.
****Email. Get on their list.

When Time is on Your Side, Bacon (and other things) Happen

I’ve voluntarily given up my annual spring motorcycle camping trip in favor of solitary confinement to a practice room.   No winding my way northward with Li'l Burro on the Utah Backcountry Discovery route, nor overshooting my migration destination with the Ducati, perhaps finally exploring Bear Highway in Montana, no, no, not me.* But as small consolation, I’ve found much can happen in my kitchen, while I’m in the next room practicing the flute.

It all started this winter, when I scored almost two gallons of fresh, raw milk from our CSA.
Heat and culture the milk, then go examine at length the difficulties of keeping your 5ths and 3rds in tune in E-Flat major.  Milk magic happens on its own.

Add some rennet, then enjoy G Major as a reward.

Cut the curds, drain the whey, press the curds, and go work on the crazy technique you learned back in NYC.

After several days of drying, turning, and brining, you’ve got Bach’s Brandenburg 4 in your pocket, and a nice block of Eating On Two Wheels Greek Style Cheese. (That’s feta, to you and me.)

Fermenting vegetables is even easier. Sprinkle them liberally with salt or brine them, weight them so they stay below the surface of their liquid, step back, and allow the local population of microbes do the work for you.  By the time you’ve re-learned the Stravinsky part you haven’t looked at in a decade, which, admittedly, takes a few days,  you’ll have a spicy radish and root kimchi.  Or curtido, that lightly fermented El Salvadoran slaw one simply must have along side a pupusa.

Operation Curtido Test.  The fancy set up in the photo is wholly unnecessary, but I was only too happy to receive this little birthday gift.

Unlike canning, from which, if you don’t follow the directions exactly, you just might experience the neurotoxic paralysis of botulinum, albeit with a particularly youthful facial complexion, when fermenting, the good guys always win!

Then there’s the adorable little “ginger bug,” a siren song for wild yeasts everywhere.  She’ll be the starter for a half gallon of ginger beer in a day or two.

People, please. I know it’s a hack job, but you get my point. I’ve no time for Photoshop, only time for bacon.

I don’t (yet!) have a temperature and humidity controlled space for fermenting, oh, say, salame (yes!!), but… look what I can do!

RECIPE
Take the Community Supported Agriculture humanely raised pork belly out of your freezer.  Carefully** measure out some curing salts and seasonings, lovingly rub that belly with the mixture, and let it rest comfortably in the fridge.  Don’t come out until you can play the tricky bits from Strauss’s Rosenkavalier.  There are a lot of tricky bits.

Take the belly out, drop it in your good neighbor’s smoker, go practice for a couple more hours, and…

Ding! Practice break!  If you are anything like me, the rest of the story will proceed along these lines:

The delicious smell wafting towards me sparks a wild kitchen circle dance, carving knife held high in the air.  But it’s difficult to slice meat whilst leaping around, so gaining control of my hysteria is paramount. I cut a slice, then reverently lower my weapon.  “Sweet Baby Jesus,” I whisper to myself.  “Bacon happened.”

No good can come of this newly discovered culinary superpower.

But there is still one thing left to do...

Sizzle. <taps watch> Sizzle.

Blessed be the steady supply of Grandpa-Good tomatoes at the Santa Cruz River Farmers' Market

Although it may appear otherwise, I do still ride motorcycles. This picture is not from today’s ride, when, after flying by the Sheriff at twice the speed limit, I sat up quickly, hoping to look like an innocent mushroom hunter***, but from a Kitt Peak ride back in March. Thanks to the good "Olive and Emilie", who I met at the top, for the photo!

References
Milk - The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages, Anne Mendelson: I checked this one out of the library years ago, and have wanted my own copy ever since. I finally plunked down real money for it, and, more importantly, allotted it space on my very small bookshelf this winter. Fascinating information, some recipes, and interesting little kitchen experiments, too.
Dry-Curing Pork, Hector Kent: A purely self-serving gift from Pilot Guy. Clear explanations regarding both “how” and “why.”  I expect to put this book to heavy use.  Features photos of cheerfully smiling people wielding butchering knives in a field.
The Art of Fermentation and Wild Fermentation, both by Sandor Ellix Katz, aka “Sandorkraut”: The former is an absolute Bible, or “in-depth exploration of essential concepts and processes from around the world,” the latter a small book focusing on actual recipes. I absolutely love this guy, and his philosophy on food, life, and community.  Visit him and a useful support forum online.

*Prepare for neglect, dear flute, because August, you are mine!
**This is no time for eyeballing it, because, if you goof, you’ll stand a chance of enjoying either nitrite toxicity or botulism.  Get yourself an accurate gram scale, if you don’t already have one from, uhhh, other pursuits.  I didn’t trust my aging kitchen scale, but Pilot Guy’s mad scientist laboratory includes, among other things, a three foot wide photo printer, a 3D printer, and a scale once owned by the former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner.  I’m pretty sure that means it’s good for these purposes, too, so long as all traces of plutonium have been removed.
***I came up empty on the mushroom hunt, although I only allowed myself a ten minute foray at one favorite spot. But – rain in June, twice?? – it’s unheard of. The season is off to an early start!  Regarding the sheriff, I guess he was texting. Useful Lemmon Tip: Once you know where he is, you know where he isn’t.  Yeeee-HA!

Harvest on… hooves?

You may remember last spring, when I returned home from my Flatistan Tour of Duty, Li’l Burro and I took a celebratory ride in the desert.

This year*, I once again find myself savoring the wonders of springtime from the saddle.  The blooming desert is almost too glorious to bear**. Oh, happy homecoming!

Eventually, the gaudy display does become unbearable. I may have stomped my foot angrily, and said a little too loudly, to no one in particular: "Would you just look at this ridiculousness?!"***

Cholla blooms outshine their younger siblings, but it’s worth taking notice of the plain green buds, because…

Can you see the shimmery bead of sap at the base of each bud's thorn?

… you can eat ‘em!  It helps to travel properly equipped****.  Depending on the length of your tongs, harvesting the buds can feel downright dangerous.

My ride is right at home amongst the wildflowers.

Not what you expected, eh?*****

* I've been home about a month now.  For a probably never to be blogged Flatistan Eating/Kayaking/Unmotorized slide show, click here.
**Springtime in the Sonoran Desert is not without its dangers. Pilot Guy documented one of our encounters last month. 
***Seriously, it's ridiculous. For more photos, see here.
****Toss the ciolim, as they are called by the Tohono O'odham, vigorously in a mesh strainer to knock off their spines. Stand upwind!  Or singe or roast them off, if you prefer. You must boil the buds for at least 15 minutes to denature their oxalic acid, and, incidentally, release a wealth of calcium!  I think I'll use mine in a pico de gallo to go with some heavily spiced tepary bean hummus I made recently.
***** Introducing “Junior!”  Li'l Burro can't wait to meet him!  Truth be told, I've been riding Junior sporadically since September, but this week I have officially leased half of him for the next two months. I'll actually be home!  I'll save you the trouble of asking: I'm leasing the left half. Never fear, the iron horses are still being exercised...