Annual Migration

The Ducati wanted a battery? She got it.  Fork seals?  Sure thing, sweetheart.  Fork TUBES?*  I’m outta time, my dear.

“Old Reliable,” the good Kawi was happy to step up to the plate and carry me northward on my annual migration to Logan, UT**.  That Kawi, she has as much grit as my beagle, and all she ever asks for is a steady supply of zip ties, WD-40, and packing tape***.  After a few gentle reminders she has half the front braking power of the Ducati - aieee! – we were comfortable with each other again.

Roosevelt Lake, AZ

June belongs firmly in the Season of Wind. Riding hundreds of miles in a 55mph crosswind? Situation Normal.   Three hundred miles of vigorous pounding feels sufficient for the day.  Sunset Crater National Monument is a good place to spend the night.

Jet Boil (new acquisition!) with… Ducati?  And Ramen?  Do explain!

Yep, that’s my Ducati in the photo background.  You don’t mind if I cheat by writing about both Annual Migration 2013 and 2014 in one post, do you?   Yep, that’s Maruchan Ramen in the photo.  It’s not my normal fare, as I’m sure you realize, but a hasty test subject for the then newly acquired Jet Boil.  They’ve since been replaced by Eating on Two Wheels proprietary instant soup mixes.  Just so you know.  Why am I not whipping up a crown roast with fingerling potatoes and wild greens over the campfire?  Because washing dishes at a campsite downright disgusts me.  Just one of those things, I guess.  I strive to minimize my clean up duties, but refuse to resort to a depressing handful of GORP for dinner, or something even more awful than campsite dishwashing: an “energy bar.”  Ew.

The wind bashes the sides of the tent into me all night, while the Friday the 13th Honey Moon drills a hole through its walls.   I’m awake in the wee hours trying to calculate exactly why the sun is rising at 3am.

The rippling sea of grass in  Wupatki National Monument is mesmerizing in the morning breezes.  I nearly miss a turn watching the invisible hand brush the desert grassland this way and that.  Last year, I stopped to visit some of the ruins.

Wukoki Ruins

At a gas stop in Marble Canyon, a familiar sound from just across the street makes its way into my helmet, past the music in my headphones, and into my brain.  I snap a blurry photo with my phone to send to Pilot Guy.
 

I’ve never noticed this airport before!  I guess little planes haven’t been on my, uh, radar, until recently.

Last year, the Ducati and I had time to check out the twists and turns of the Cedar Breaks Scenic Byway, which had eluded me for so long, and Cedar Breaks National Monument.  You don’t have to hike far to get a spectacular view.
 

Spectra Point, Cedar Breaks National Monument

After a rough year, several hundred miles on the Ducati were just what she and I needed to rebuild our relationship.  We were finally getting places!  It was just about the time I was starting to trust her again, of course…



… that I was rescued by my own fearsome Corolla.  Pilot Guy and I had arranged to meet that evening just a few miles away, so it was easy for him to skid in for the glamorous rescue.  “It’s just the battery,” we told ourselves.  All that southern AZ heat is so very hard on batteries, you know.  And – Lo! – after a long drink from the Corolla****, she came back to life.  But you know what?  It’s never just the battery, as far as I can tell.*****  And I was right.  What we don’t know yet is that the stator had all but melted away.

Rolling again… for now.

 

Whatever the mechanical issue, the next day I was able to limp the Ducati 270 more miles, with the Corolla support vehicle not far behind. We had to stop over and over for long stretches to recharge the battery, we sipping endless cups of lemonade and iced tea, she sipping electrons.

Traffic stoppage in Salt Lake City.  What will come first, a dead again battery or an overheat?

We made it as far as Adrian’s****** house before nightfall threatened.  Adrian just happens to live about 60 miles from my final destination, and has a very well equipped garage.  It was an obvious place to throw in the towel.

The beagle watches while I optimistically install a new voltage regulator.  It's not going to do the trick.

Sushi consolation dinner upon arrival in Logan via Corolla. 

But that was sooo last year. This year, the easy-natured Kawasaki and I ride along encumbered only by the swan song of my tent stakes*******.   After my lengthy and arguably painful absence, I’m falling in love with the Great American West all over again: majestic, brilliantly painted, and just plain big here; gentle, sweet, and abundant there, with everything in between.  Utah Route 89 between Panguitch and I-70 has none of the drama of Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Capital Reef, and the areas further south, but it is so very beautiful in a simple gifts sort of way, that it still wrenches my heart on this, my twelfth migration.  The glassy blue Sevier Creek, hesitantly twisting its way through the verdant green grass, ever unsure of the proper direction, and later, as the Sevier River, briskly bubbling with intent, northward down the slope, touches me deeply and inexplicably.  The dreamy landscape is rhythmically broken by little towns from another era, sporting Lavender Festivals, baskets of flowers, soda fountains, and picturesque temples perched atop hills that call to mind storybook Transylvanian castles.  There’s something too special about this place for me to just pull the bike over, snap a casual photo, and be done with it.

I spend my last night out at Freemont Indian State Park, in quiet reflection and gratitude.



My final approach the next day offers little room for detouring, aside from a pass down Utah’s “Fruit Way.” The road is lined with trees visibly bursting with sweet cherries. It’s hard not to stop, but there’s no room on the bike for produce at the moment, and I’ll have a pleasantly difficult time keeping up with northern Utah’s cornucopia as it is.

Home for the summer is around the bend…

My back yard - the mouth of this canyon.

… and before I know it, I’ll be packing for my August return migration.  Oh wait... ********.


*Turns out one of the new seals was defective.  For once, the easier answer prevails.
**Beagle, Toyota, and Ducati have since arrived under separate cover.
***It’s invisible!
****No, I couldn’t simply jump start and go. If only.
*****Recent victory!  As it turns out, sometimes it is just the battery!
******You met Adrian in Baja.
*******Quite problematic with the crazy wind, actually.
******** Posting about June at the end of August is also Situation Normal.  Have I broken a blog post asterisk record?
 __________________________________
Cooking Equipment Review: 
The Jet Boil Sol Advanced Cooking System performs exactly as advertised, so I advise you not to turn your back on it for a second.   Jet. Boil.  Get it?  It's fast.  Despite the fragile plastic bottom cover (customer service replaced it with a smile,) and ill-fitting plastic lid, this thing has opened up a new camping culinary world for me. I can't believe there was a time I didn't want a camp stove.  The Coffee Press accessory is a neat little item, which I even used in the house in Utah, when I didn't have my usual press available to me.  I use the fuel modestly, but it's lasted so long that I haven't yet had the opportunity to try the fuel canister Crunch-It recycling tool.  You can use the stove to cook with an actual little pot or pan, too, but because of my camping dish washing aversion, I just use the provided cup to boil water.  The metal cup gets really hot (duh!), even with its little heat cozy, so take care not to burn your flute playing lips.  It's a bit tricky to disengage the cup from the stove itself, especially when it's hot, and I don't trust the cozy handle to keep me from spilling boiling water over myself, but neither of these things keeps me from loving my Jet Boil!  Not the cheapest stove in the shed, but worth it, in my opinion, especially since I got it as a birthday gift!

Happy New Year! (Triple Chocolate Cake)

I spent New Year’s weekend with good friends in Scottsdale, AZ.  Of course, I was hoping to ride the motorcycle. I’m always looking for an excuse to ride Oak Creek Canyon or the Apache Trail, two of my favorite day trips from the Phoenix area.

But instead, I drove this…

Yep.  My new-to-me wheels after this debacle.

…so I could bring this…



…to make this!

Triple Chocolate Cake*:  chocolate genoise soaked in a Frangelico syrup, frosted with chocolate ganache, and decorated with free form chocolate praline sheets that shatter as soon as you cut the cake (or sooner, if you move the cake, even as carefully as you would move plutonium), leaving your creation resembling the Roman Coliseum.

Also on our community project menu:  Midwestern Relish Tray, Dungeness Crab with assorted dipping sauces, Cream of Mushroom Soup, Roast Beast with Potatoes, Spaghetti Squash and Basil Gratin, Freshly Baked Bread, Green Salad with Toasted Hazelnuts and Gorgonzola, and freely flowing champagne.

*From Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible.  A tricky cake (a few misleading points in the recipe, in my opinion), with tricky decorations (knowing what I know now, I would handle the chocolate praline sheets a little differently), and undoubtedly the most delicious chocolate creation of all time, as far as I can tell.  If you get a yen to give it a try, leave a comment, check back, and I'll give you the details.  Well worth the indignity of taking the car.

Other Fine Italian Machinery (Homemade Pasta)

Remember when I bought my Ducati?  I never got around to telling you, but that wasn’t the only fine (and expensive!) Italian luxury item I acquired in August of 2010*.

Pasta guitar, garganelli comb, and corzetti stamp

The fresh pasta of northern Italy is made with white flour and eggs.  Nothing more, nothing less.  And if you use eggs from pastured chickens (chickens that live a normal chicken life and eat a normal chicken diet, unlike those who lay the eggs you find in the grocery store), your pasta will have an especially lovely golden color to it.

For each (small Italian sized) serving, mix together 1 egg and 1/2 cup flour.  Forget all that nonsense about putting the flour in a heap on a big wooden counter top, making a well in the center, breaking the eggs in the well etc., etc.  Do that, and I guarantee the eggs will escape from your flour volcano caldera and make a fine mess.  Just mix it in a bowl, like you’d do anything else, okay?  Hold back a bit of the flour at first, and add that remaining portion a bit at a time as you finish your mixing until you judge the dough to be soft, but not sticky.  Now you must knead.  And knead.  And knead.  For eight minutes, according to the irrefutable Marcella Hazan, whose recipe I adapt here.  Until the dough is satiny, silky, deliciously smooth.  Dust the ball with flour, wrap it in plastic wrap, and let it rest a bit while you wash the bowl, the counter and prepare your pasta rolling surface and equipment.

Next, pick your pasta dough flattening weapon of choice.  If you own a hand cranked pasta machine by all means, use it.  Or, if you lost your hand cranked pasta machine in your divorce, and/or you want to make pasta the traditional way and/or you don’t have any money to buy a hand cranked pasta machine (especially after shelling out the big bucks your funky pasta shaping toys), get thee to Home Depot and have them cut you a 32” by 1 1/2” diameter wooden dowel.  That shall be your pasta rolling pin.  But don’t use it to roll the dough.  Use it to stretch the dough.  Like this: (excepting the awful music, which would most certainly ruin the pasta).

This is my method, and although I don’t take the trouble to make my circle of dough so perfectly round, I do it quickly enough to finish the job before the dough dries out (no small task here in the desert), which is all you need to get the job done.  It’s really not terribly difficult, and once you get the hang of it, I think it’s actually quicker than the hand cranked machine.  And a bit better, too, as it works more texture into the pasta, which is a good thing.  For the record, I think this video is from a restaurant is in Japan (!!).  They have a whole slew of pasta making videos that fascinate the kitchen nerd in me.  The thickness of your sheets will vary in according to your personal taste, skill, and shape of pasta you are making.  Aim for sheets as thin as, you know… pasta!

Finally, as delightfully fun as working play-doh, but (for those of you who ate your play-doh as a child) infinitely tastier, make your pasta shapes!**

Corzetti stampati - I served them with pesto.

Garganelli - Their classic pairing is the the three P's. Peas, Peppers and Prosciutto.  In a cream sauce.  Which clings delightfully to those ridges supplied by the garganelli "comb."

Roll your pasta sheets over the wires of the "guitar..." 

... and automagically, you have the square cross section of  Maccheroni alla chitarra!  Yum yum with a simple sauce of meat drippings, rosemary and garlic.

After all that creative manipulation, do pay attention when you cook your fresh pasta.  It cooks much more quickly than dried. Your sauce of choice*** should be completed before you ever put the pasta in the pot.  Walk away from the pot at your own risk.

Edit:  Wouldn't you know it?  Oct 16 was "Blog Action Day," and the 2011 topic was food.  Looks like I unknowingly complied!

* I got (and photographed) my Rosle food mill around the same time.  It was quite the spending spree.
** No special gadgets needed to make ravioli, farfalle (bow ties), most ribbons (tagliatelle, pappardelle, fettuccine, etc.) cavatelli, orecchiette, tortellini,  and countless other pasta types.
***Which sauce with which shape?  Oy, that’s a long discussion.  Ask Marcella.  Or do what feels right.

The Daily Special: Spicy Potato Matchsticks

Recipe:

1) Decide you will have gnocchi for dinner.  Purchase the wrong type of potato since you haven’t made gnocchi since last winter.  Let the two accidental baking potatoes sit around while you are busy with other things.

2) The potatoes need to be eaten.   You’ve been traveling more than not this month.  There is nothing else in the house to eat.  This potato shall be dinner.  How to best capitalize upon the situation?

3)  Drag out the mandoline slicer with which you sliced off an alarming amount of your finger last year.  Discover you do not have a waffle blade, so figure out how to install the julienne blade, instead.  (This may take several minutes.)

4)  Slice up your potato(es) into delightfully teeny tiny matchsticks, and deep fry them only a small handful at a time, since you can not stomach the thought of using an entire dollar’s worth of oil to cook one potato.  Poke at them with a fork if you want to keep them separated while frying (drying them in a paper towel first helps), but it won’t really work, and they’ll stick to the fork if you poke them immediately after their submersion.  Does it really matter if they come out as a charming birds nest instead of individual sticks?

5) If you can resist the temptation to eat them all as they come out of the pan (impressive!), allow them to drain while you prepare a paste of aromatics (onion, garlic, ginger, shallot, whatever), spices (cumin, chile, coriander, again whatever), and salt. Use your mortar and pestle if you wish to avoid food processor rage.  Or use the mini food processor.  It’s entirely up to you. 

6) Slowly fry this paste in a tablespoon or two (or more, depends on how much paste you’ve got) of oil (yes! more oil! or use leftover from frying the potatoes) until it’s nearly dry and nicely browned.  You can cook the paste and fry the batches of potatoes simultaneously, but you better have your kitchen kung-fu goin’ on, because if you look away from either for more than a few seconds, something is going to burn.  Add your fried potatoes to the cooking paste, gently stir ‘round and mash up the bits of spicy goodness.   Don’t try too hard to get it perfect, because who knows?  Perhaps you’ll be the lucky one to hit the jackpot glob of spiciness in your mouthful of potatoes.

7) Enjoy with a cold beer.  (Do not open the beer until the mandoline slicer is safely put away.  No, really.)  Turn on some Bollywood and pretend you are in Mumbai.

8) Oh, the glorious crunchiness of it all!

Adventures in a Foreign Kitchen

When I say foreign kitchen, I do not refer to the ethic designation of the Middle Eastern banquet my summer roommates (who are not my roommates this summer, long story) and I prepare each year, but to the fact that we’re working in, um, a less than ideal, certainly not our own kitchen.  Our company-provided (thank you!) student apartment typically comes equipped with a bent fork and foil pan.  Some years, we luck out and get a cutting board, too.  Sure, I bring a few things, but there’s not much room in my two door hatch back after I pack all my motorcycle and canning related accoutrements.

It’s amazing how clumsy I feel cooking my first few meals here.  The work flow is way off, and each year I have to re-learn how to function using an electric stove top.  But soon it becomes a batterie de cuisine iron chef challenge.  Just what can we put out using only a garlic press and wine bottle-cum-rolling pin?

Falafel, for one thing.  But not without a few (or more) cursewords.   As much as I hate food processors (they don’t do things well, and they don’t save me time, I don’t care what Mark Bittman says), I do bring along a mini Cuisinart.   You know that handy feature when you’re processing something thick, and you spend more time taking off the cover and scraping the contents back towards the blade than you do actually processing?  Gawd, I hate that.*  Now multiply that  entire procedure by six when you’re making a large batch of falafel in a tiny food processor.  Saying “I’ll just knock out this falafel before I go to bed,” when it’s already almost tomorrow is akin to saying “I’ll weld my motorcycle side stand before I ride out to Colorado in the morning.”  I don’t care how many times you’ve made falafel, you can count on being stuck in Oklahoma for three extra days.  I wasn’t exactly cooking with love at that moment.  I finally bailed, and finished it in my even smaller mortar and pestle.  It was quicker.  And better.  But I still had to wash the damn food processor.  Will I ever learn?

Falafel patties await immersion in a hot oil bath.

Making pita reminded me that the short leg disadvantage is not limited to motorcycle riding.  The counter tops in my 1916 house are blessedly below regulation height, but here they are not. I stood on a chair to knead the dough.

Still and all, we did pretty well.  Here are a few samples from our feast, hastily snapped as my low battery light blinked like an angry red eye.

I never really liked hummus all that much until I tasted Gil’s. There's tahini there in the center, hummus around the outside.  Do note the stylish serving plate.




We all know Gil's started preparing his mushrooms when the fumes of the smoking chiles drive us, coughing and choking, out of the apartment.  It's worth it!





We can not stop eating Nadine’s Sucre a la Creme (aka penuche, for you New Englanders out there).  Even after we've made ourselves sick, we have to have just one more piece...





The banquet is not complete without Turkish coffee prepared in the ebay ibrik.  (Say that 10 times fast.)




Not shown:  roasted potatoes, marinated peppers, kabobs with warm spices, garlicky yogurt sauce, watermelon...

* Please do not tell me to add (more, or any, depending) water, oil whatever.  I don’t want to.  And no, I refuse to grate expensive Parmesan Reggiano in a food processor.  There’s only one way to do it.  And it does not involve a rasp grater, people.  Sorry, but I have a strong opinion on the subject.  Harrumph.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Day Twelve: Track Day!

Well, Merry Christmas to me, the stars have aligned themselves yet again.  I've been wanting to ride on a track for ages, but the opportunity has eluded me until now.  Not only is it a big hit to this starving artist's budget, but "track days" seem to be designed to directly conflict with the working classical musician's schedule.  A friend (former employer, actually) recently became a lifetime member of the Inde Motorsports Ranch near Willcox, AZ.  What this means to you and me is that he can ride there whenever he feels like it, AND he can bring a guest (that's me!) for free.  So, instead of paying several hundreds of dollars to ride on the track with, oh, a zillion other people, I paid nothing, had my bike transported in the luxury accommodations of the Iron Horse BMW enclosed multibike trailer, and shared the entire track with oh, maybe 10 other riders at most. I am the Track Princess!

Here's the track.  2.75 miles and 21 turns.  What's not to like?

No traffic, road surface issues or grumpy law enforcement to worry about, plus lots of safe run off in the event of a miscalculation all add up to... zoom zoom!

The picture looks so simple, but without a map in your head, it's easy to feel a bit lost on your first few laps. Those little secondary lines don't look so secondary when you're out there, and the map doesn't show the slight elevation changes.  The hills are just steep enough to leave you wondering what's coming next until you have the circuit memorized in your head.  And that's all part of the fun!


Someone snapped this during my "pre-flight" check.

Look at all the pretty bikes!

Although I have nothing to compare it to, I'm told this is a pretty nice facility as far as tracks go.  I'm inclined to believe it.  Located near Chiricahau National Monument and the Willcox Playa Wildlife Area (a popular area to view sandhill cranes, among other birds), the vistas are beautiful (not that you're gazing at scenery while racing around the track, or anything).  There's an observation tower with a bar (I assume those imbibing are limiting themselves to watching, not riding or driving), showers (stocked with fluffy towels and scented bath products), classroom facilities including flat screen video equipment and a glass topped table made from a Ford Cosworth engine, a pretty little dining patio with a very nice barbecue and garden sculptures...

and...


AND...

...a kitchen bigger than my entire apartment.  Fully equipped with the best of the best.  Check out THIS baby.  Its brakes and 0-60 time rival that of many of the machines out on the asphalt here today.  Serious cooks know exactly what I'm talking about.  I heard a rumor that the chef gets a break on the cost of class time, so I'll be back, armed, and ready to duel for that privilege.

I was in fine company - owners of motorcycle dealerships, riding coaches and real live racers! They were friendly and helpful, showing me the map and explaining the strategy for each turn (the "delayed apex" line one uses for turns on the street no longer applies!) and taking me on "sight laps" of the track.  They were graciously complimentary of my riding skills, but served up some deserved friendly fire at my footwear* (hiking boots, the only real weak spot in my suit of armor).  And although they could pass me at unthinkable speeds, I ended the day feeling good about my ability.

Part of the fun of riding a motorcycle (especially on the track) is that in your mind, you look very, very cool.  Something like this...

That's "FOG," the kind EX500-er who bailed me out in this post by mailing me valve cover bolts for my Kawasaki.

or even this...

I'll explain where I got this photo later.

 
Of course, you and I know better.  I'll never look like those photos.  My bike is red!


Chances are, I looked more along the lines of this...

Me (and Kawi), touring in Colorado.

To be fair, that's not quite right either. If you know where to look, there is some physical evidence on my motorcycle that suggests I was somewhere between the two.


Despite my inexperience in this new riding environment, I do think I set at least one record...

Happy, Happy Track Princess!

...the one for biggest smile!


*Tracks often offer formal instruction with professional riders, and each school has its own safety gear requirements.  I'm going to have to buy some real motorcycle boots for the class offered at Inde.  More shopping.  Blech.

Another Set of New Wheels - This Time German!

Rosle. Yeah, baby.