MY PEOPLE
Thomas Butler,
my great great
great great
grandfather
was a wool weaver.
I hope to find him today,
sleeping in his homespun
at St. Catherine’s.
But my Irish roots are right here
at the breakfast table.
Good Lord, these people know how to eat.
Baked beans, eggs, sausage, bacon,
potato, pudding,
toast and marmalade.
And the coffee is good.
These are surely my people.
We spent most of yesterday afternoon making dinner – tandoori chicken, chapatis, and aloo gobi. Although we usually make tandoori chicken with a mix, yesterday we made it from scratch, which is always better, and a lot more fun.
There are lots of recipes online for tandoori chicken, but none of them are quite what I remember from a cookbook I used to have, but seem to have misplaced in some dark corner.
So we took several of the recipes as inspiration, and came up with something all our own. Like all good recipes, I’m not entirely sure what I put in it. Yoghurt, fresh-pressed garlic, grated fresh ginger, cumin, cardamon, coriander, black pepper, cloves, cayenne, garam masala that we already had, and lots of chopped cilantro. As to the quantities of each, I really couldn’t say. Which is a shame, because it was some of the best I’ve ever made.
We’ll have to try that again some day. Maybe that time I’ll write down the amounts. But, realistically, I doubt that I will.
The aloo gobi recipe is the one that’s at the end of the “Bend it like Beckham” DVD.
The chapatis are my own interpretation of the technique that my brother taught me.
Maybe we’ll make it for you next time you visit.
This weekend, someone I never met passed away quietly in his sleep. Bob was a frequent poster on a mailing list that I’ve been on since the very beginning – the FoodWine mailing list – where he offered sage advice, clever insight, and good food suggestions.
It’s hard to know what to say about someone that one has only known via email messages. We’ll certainly miss him on the list.
This evening I discovered that the electrical outlets in my garage are wired in series. I discovered this because one of them is a GFI outlet, and something tripped it. I discovered it via the simple expedient of having a freezer full of meat turn rancid. I am not happy about this discovery. Fortunately there wasn’t much in the freezer, but it was still a lot of wasted food, and I *REALLY* hate throwing away food.
Grr.
Another Pumpkin Day has come and gone, and it was a huge amount of fun, as usual. It was very well attended, and there seemed to be dozens and dozens of kids, all of whom were yelling at any given time. The photos are here. I think that this year I got photos of most of the pumpkins that got completed, but I’m not certain of that.
While in Orlando, we had dinner at Texas de Brazil, which was an excellent (if somewhat pricey) Churrascaria. Highly recommended. Sim, por favor!
Turns out that, as of roughly a month ago, there is in fact an Ethiopian restaurant in Lexington. It’s right at Euclid and Ashland, near Chevy Chase, just a few minutes from UK. They are only open for lunch on Sunday, so I’ll probably go there for dinner tomorrow.
By the way, just in case you are tempted, the “I thought they didn’t eat anything” jokes aren’t funny. Not only that, but they mark you out as being unaware of your world. That being said, I’m sure someone will make the joke anyway.
In preparation for Labor Day, I tried to get the grill working. Since the grill has probably not been fired up in about 3 years, it’s not in the best shape. As I started cleaning out the old lava rocks, the burners crumbled into rust and dust. 🙁
So, the decision whether to get a new grill, or try to fix the one that’s there. I went to Walmart and looked around, finally finding that I could get replacement burners to stick in there. Looks like I can also get a replacement grill surface. So I can essentially have a new grill for about $35, rather than the $150 or $200 it would cost to actually replace the whole thing.
So I got a new burner, and spent the last hour assmbling it and coaxing it into the grill. And, voila, I have a new grill, sort of, and should be able to grill something tomorrow. I’m very pleased with myself.
Of course, the grill surface itself is in pretty poor shape, and I also spent about a half hour scrubbing it until it looks like I could actually cook on it and not die as a result. And I’ve replaced the icky nasty 10-year-old lava rocks with nice new ceramic briquettes.
So, perhaps tomorrow I’ll see if I actually remember how to grill something. 🙂
After some geocaching yesterday, and a couple hours writing, I ran into Steve Mallet. Steve always seems to know what’s going on. Yesterday, for example, he knew that Drupal was having a conference here in Portland at the same time as OSCon. We treked across town, and spent a very enjoyable few hours with the Drupal folks.
When I got back to the hotel, Clint picked me up, and we went down to Canby to visit Del and Lynn, who seem to be doing really well, and are anxious to get home as soon as possible and get back to their lives.
Then, we headed back to Portland, and went to Mudai, where we hung out until about 11. Wonderful, wonderful food.
Although I missed the Extravaganza, about which I’m a little disappointed, I really come to these things primarily for the chance to spend time with certain people, and meet new people. So, in all, it was a day very well spent, even though almost none of it was actually at the conference that I came all this way to attend.
But I’m a little disappointed to have missed the State of the Onion, which is always a high point of the week. I wonder if someone recorded it.
I just discovered that I really don’t much enjoy Geocaching alone. It’s so much more fun with Sarah. I found one, but kinda lost the passion for it. Perhaps I can persuade one or two other folks to go with me later today.
Last evening was *amazing*. I called Clint, who just moved out here less than a week ago, and he and Madeline came to pick me up, and we went blueberry picking. We drove about 45 minutes south, met up with some other friends, and then drove out to Pihl Orchard. We picked for a while, and I just wandered around the orchard for a while. I have never smelled peaches that smelled quite so wonderful. Still alive and still on the tree, and so full of wonderful flavor that they were about to burst. Mmmmmm.
The lady that owns the place has been there 40 years, and planted every tree with her own hands. The blueberries were fantastic, particularly with a little vanilla ice cream back at Clint and Sarah’s house, where Madeline told all about our adventure. It is *great* to have good friends. And having good friends this far from home is a big plus.
Hopefully this evening we’ll squeeze in some time for a visit to Mudai. Mmmmm.