Loose Ends

I'm amazed at how tired I am from my week at the Air Races. I've been slacking a little, but it's for a good cause...

Saturday night the San Francisco Giants clinched the National League West title with ten games still to play in the Regular Season. They have been on a roll as they say. Last night's win was their sixth in a row. AT&T Park sold out for the 150-somethingth time in a row. Three and a half million fans have been to the park this season.

Like I've said before, the Giants are playing a very enjoyable version of Major League Baseball this season. The starting pitchers have escaped whatever demons were giving them pause, and pitching like the World Beaters they were in 2010 when they did beat the World to become World Series Champs.

Reno Air Races:
The Unlimited Breitling Gold Race winner, Steven Hinton was interviewed after the show by SpeedTV's Dave Despain for his weekly racing wrap-up/bench racing show, Wind Tunnel:

 

Cookin' with TruckeeDave:
I'm tired, but I still tried a couple of new recipes Saturday:
From the Coconut & Lime Blog: Dill Broccoli Slaw I've been looking for the broccoli slaw in the grocery stores in the Inland Valley for a month. When I got back up to Truckee, my neighborhood Safeway store had it in stock. It's good stuff, crispy, tangy and a nice change from green salads.

My Safeway also had a great sale on fresh raspberries, buy one, get two free! I had planned to make a raspsberry tort, but Saturday I defrosted the garage refrigerator and found a pair of frozen deep dish pie shells, so Deep Dish Raspberry Pie it was!

This was the third pie in a row after making my Lumpy Peach Cobbler most weeks this summer. The pies have been turning out "a little sloppy" to put a kind spin on it...

Who knew there was so much juice in the little rascals? When I went into the kitchen this morning for some coffee, there was a note on the pie:

Sister K...whatta Kidder! I like "Head Wound Pie"

Space Shuttle Fly-By:
I watched NASA's Space Shuttle Endeavour Friday morning as it flew around San Francisco Bay on it's way to it's Retirement Home in Los Angeles. I can't bring myself to opine on this today. I'll weigh in next week.

Tables

I was out for a meal twice in two days. Monday evening the family visited the new-to-us Asian restaurant in our little town, and Tuesday I took Mom to her monthly Church Luncheon.

Monday we had a great meal at our local organic Chinese food restaurant with a sushi bar, and we had a great time too!

We've had take-out a couple of times and finally made an appearance for an early (6PM) table. Good first impression time...as we strode towards our booth, we passed a small table in the dining area that was piled high with fresh green beans and pea pods...the wait staff would work on the prep between orbits around the dining room.

As a matter of fact, along one side of the restaurant several small tables were piled high with cartons of produce. The rest of the tables were nearly full of customers. Rambunctious for an early  Monday night, I was already having a good time.

We ordered a sushi plate and a seafood salad for openers, water all around, Sister K ordered a glass of chardonnay, and I ordered a Sapporo. "Large or small?" asked our waiter, "Small" I replied.

Our waiter was back with our ice water...it came in pint sleeves, like ale in a brewpub, our wine, soda and Sapporo followed a minute later. We asked for more time to pore over the menu.

A different server brought a seaweed salad, confusion erupted...then the sushi plate arrived. The salad was the traditional seaweed with a toasted sesame oil dressing, sprinkled with sesame seeds and dried chili flakes...delicious. The sushi was divine, nigiri style maguro, hamachi, sake (salmon), hirami (halibut) , and tai (red snapper). Our waiter returned and Sister K asked about the seafood salad...the noise level was medium-high, so the mistake was easily made.

About now, I tipped the last of my Sapporo into my mouth...just as the owner flew by and placed another 12oz Sapporo in front of me and said "On the house" Great cheer all around the table...a minute later he was back, this time with an appetizer/desert plate..."on the house"...a half dozen tempura shrimp and four pieces of baklava. Not two minutes later, the second server was back with the seafood salad. More tempura shrimp on a bed of spring mix with a delicate honey mustard vinaigrette.

Our entrees arrived...mushu pork and cashew chicken. Everything was delicious...I don't give marks off for flour tortillas instead of true mushu pancakes...hey, it's California...press two for Engrish...the owner was back...this time with a 22oz Tsingtao...more laughter all around...I poured half a glass, and foisted the rest off on my brother-in-law...I was driving after all!

We were slowing down and filling up now...but the owner was still doing his best dervish impression...before we asked for the check, he was back with two grocery bags of fresh, organic produce (you take this home, on the house), and another plate of baby salad greens with more of the honey mustard dressing, "on the house", and an "Easter basket" presentation of fortune cookies!

As we trundled out, the owner handed my brother-in-law and I yet another 12oz Tsingtao each! Even though we left a tip "to-remember-us-by", I felt like a cat burglar making off with a pillowcase full of the family jewels!

Dinners for the rest of the week will feature mango chicken with sesame rice...and Caesar salads!

The contrast between Monday evening's to-do at the organic Asian joynt, and the brunch at Mom's church wasn't the eye-opener you'd expect. This month's theme was Flag Day (which comes up Thursday 6/14). We arrived later than usual, and there was almost nobody there.

The regulars all straggled in a bit later than usual, but we had a full house. Tossed green salad, wedges of seedless watermelon, a nice potato salad (Mom said it was like Indiana potato salad), and grilled chicken breast, with a strawberry shortcake style desert.

Though not exactly rambunctious by Monday night's standards, everyone had a good time, the laughter level was medium-high, and I'm sure everyone else went home and went down for a nap too.

After my good nap, I watched a great Giants game! Two home runs by youngsters helped propel the Giants to a 6-3 victory over the Houston Astros. 22 year old LHP Madison Bumgarner launched one way up into the left field bleachers to tie the game 1-1 in the 3rd. It was his first major league knock.

He had quite the start as well, 7.2 IP, 6H, 2R, 1ER, 0BB,12K.

All in all a very enjoyable, satisfying game.

Vector Control

Last week I got an email from BajaBabe asking me to send her some Bay Laurel Leaves-'They cost a fortune in the bottle here' she wrote.

It just happened that I was heading over to the SturgeUrge Compound anyway, so when I got there I told him I was going to snip a bough or two to send north. "Not to worry" says Urge, "I've got some I cut today, just a second. I'll grab some you can have" and out the door he went.

The SturgeUrge Compound sits on about an acre near the bottom of a northeast facing wooded canyon. A half dozen similar lots up the canyon all share the private road, and every lot has the mixed redwood, California bay laurel, and coast live oaks. The little enclave disfavors suntanning, but it's definitely an oasis when the mercury reaches into the 80s. The California Bay Laurels are a culinary extra...everywhere you look it's like a pantry...Bay Leaf City.

Urge came through the front door and thrust two huge branches of bay leaves at me and we sat down in the front room and chewed the fat for a beer or so. I grabbed the branches and said "Thanks and goodnight, I'll drop you a DVD of our day on the Bay with the USS Iowa next time I'm in the neighborhood". Out to the car I strode, I tossed the bay leaf branches in the back seat, and hit the road.

A day or two later, I grabbed the branches from the car and gazed on them for the first time in bona fide daylight. The leaves looked like they had Black Spot Rose Disease, like I battled in the summer of 2010 in the Ancestral Diggins. Into the green waste container they went. I phoned SturgeUrge this afternoon and asked about the spots. I remember that Urge lost an oak tree over his driveway a some years ago to the then newly discovered Sudden Oak Death Syndrome. I quizzed him about Sudden Oak Death Syndrome, and if the Bay Laurel was susceptible to the pathogen. Urge said the Bay trees are a carrier species..."Looks like Rose Black Spot Fungus" I replied. Urge said between his oak and the neighbors, they'd lost at least a half dozen Coastal Live Oaks in their little canyon hideaway in the last few years. We finished up by making some plans to get a fishing trip in this weekend...if the winds allow it...stay tuned...

This afternoon I had to go to the grocery store for a few staples...milk, OJ, grapefruit juice and another bunch of watercress. On my way to the store, I made a detour through Canyon, CA in search of bay leaves and to find an old feral Damson Plum tree that I remember from three plus decades ago. Those now wild plums were like candy, and they made incredible preserves.

The plum tree is MIA, the sunny wide spot at the canyon bottom didn't hold it's sweet surprise anymore. I pulled into several turnouts with bay trees...every one displayed the telltale spots. I thought better of sending any probably infected but asymptomatic bay leaves to BajaBabe's locale.

Back at the beginning of the Sudden Oak Death Syndrome epidemic, BajaBabe herself spent a summer on the front lines of the SODS war with the US Forest Service doing an inventory from south to north in California looking for SODS infected plots of forest. To hear her tell it, she earned every penny that summer! Bushwacking is the word that comes to mind...

I'm sure I can get a glassine envelope full of bay leaves next time I'm in a market with a Mexican Spice Section, for 99 cents.

That's all this afternoon...I've gotta get in a cold shower before the Giants game.

After Dinner Update:
OMG the Bitten Word's Beet Rhubarb and Orange Salad rocks when you remember the Feta Cheese!  ★★★★★

Meltdown

I'm wilting...it's still almost 80°F in here at 1:23AM...

It's not like I didn't plan for this...I planned my day with the afternoon heating in mind.

In the last couple of days, I stumbled upon a great, new-to-me Food Blog, The Bitten Word. Therein I found a great looking recipe for a Beet, Rhubarb, and Orange Salad.

The new produce store downtown has these gorgeous Golden Beets, as well as the regular Detroit Improved classic red ones. Rhubarb is at the peak of the season, so hell yeah...I'm in.

So the beets are roasted in a 400°F oven for an hour...the perfect recipe to heat the kitchen and most of the rest of the house...so I was preheating the oven at 10:30AM, and the beets were cooling by noon...I even poached the rhubarb early...the first time...oops, 30 seconds too long on the rhubarb,so it turned to mush instead of the desired "crisp tender"

Anyway, I picked up another pound of rhubarb and poached it to perfection, in time for everything to cool enough to cache in the reefer until dinnertime.

The salad was a hit, though six servings must be as the entree...I've got enough for dinner for four again tomorrow. (This time I'll remember the feta, so it'll be like it's not even leftovers!) Now that I think about it, I shoulda taken some pictures...This salad is nothing if not colorful!

Thursday Night Roundup:
The Giants had the day off...their first in 20 days!

I found out that you can watch the whole Indy500 online! It's the best 500  in a long time, and runs about 2 hours 45 minutes. Turbos are back, baby!

The forecast says Friday will be hot before the pattern turns cool over the weekend...there's even a chance of rain for Reno this weekend.

Wow, the Pacific Battleship Center posted a link to my USS Iowa Tow Video Blog, and more than 600 people visited CorduroyPlanet. Thank you all!

Don't forget to Like my CorduroyPlanet Facebook Page.

Thanks again everyone!

Schizophrenic

"Nobody multitasks like Americans", I heard myself say Friday evening at our table in our favorite local Chinese restaurant. Our waiter was taking our orders, as we were catching up with our dining companions...and being Americans, we somehow had our just-off-the-boat waiter's head spinning.

He's going to make a fine American it turns out...he has patience...these days you need lots of patience in America.

As always, dinner was great! Yan's chefs know their way around a wok. They have a special way with vegetables...the Garlic Asparagus and Dry Cooked Beans especially stand out.

We dined at 6PM, right in the middle of the Giants' game from New York City, which is why I found myself multitasking later at 1AM Saturday morning, and why I'm writing today's CorduroyPlanet more than 12 hours later than I usually post it.

After we finished dinner and settled the check, I grabbed the car and pulled it to Yan's front door, with the game on the radio. Pulling onto the main drag, Kruk & Kuip announced that the Giants had just come back to tie it in the 10th inning. So much for after dinner conversation.

The Giants won it, thanks to their new bullpen/closer by committee. Ball Game!

So at 12:30, CSNBA replayed the game. I'd watched the first four innings before we left for dinner, and wanted to see how the G-Men got in and out of trouble during dinner...

Small problem...at 1AM, LIVE all the way from Bahrain's Sakhir Circuit, SpeedTV was streaming Formula One's Practice 3

This is how I ended up multitasking in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Protests in Bahrain have neither subsided, nor ramped up since F1 arrived in the Island Kingdom.

I'd watched both P1 and P2 Friday morning, and today's images were very different. The air looked exactly like Shanghai's polluted air last weekend...gray and dark.

I tweeted some questions to SpeedTV's Pit Reporter Will Buxton and to the Pirelli Tyre PR Team who were actively tweeting news from trackside:

@WillBuxton How's that sandy air at Sakhir, Will? It looks like Shanghai Smog. Can you feel it on your skin? Is it playin' hell w/ grip?

@Pirelli_Media  #F1 What's the forecast for winds at Sakhir? There's enough sand in the air now that it looks like Shanghai Smog #Traction?

 It was the residual dust from morning sand storms that swept across the desert island that is Bahrain. As each practice I watched went on, what looked like a groove of tire rubber was laid down on the track, only to disappear by the beginning of the next session.

It turns out that the groove was not in fact rubbering in per se, but the cars were blowing the sand dust off the track, only to have the winds blow in a new coating of dust before the next track session.

@WillBuxton replied: "Yeah its pretty heavy air today. Sandstorms this morning. Will be playing havoc out there."

@Pirelli_Media replied too, much more personally by Twitter DM (Direct Message): "Winds are hard to forecast but it looks like the sand will clear by lunch time."

All the while, the Giants replay was passing by on the TV. I tore myself away from the cars on the dusty track and watched every pitch of the Giants' turnaround and win, before watching the waning minutes of P3.

When F1 wrapped up, I was just an hour and a half from Qualifying, and wide awake...thanks adrenaline! I made a snack and set about reading up on P3 minutia and set the DVR to watch Qualifying lest I fall asleep before the pole was decided...

Well, I made it to Q1, but zonked out midway through Q2...

I watched all three rounds of Qualifying this afternoon...after the Giants came from behind to tie the Mets and lose it all in the 9th inning!

NYC Weatherfolks say Sunday's Giants-Mets game should be rained out, oddly the WeatherUnderground.com  forecast for Bahrain's Sakir Circuit says 40% chance of rain for Sunday morning's (our time) Grand Prix.

Yes, I'm setting the DVR, and no I don't think it'll rain. Wind and dust are something else all together...

Opening Day

Friday was Opening Day for the 2012 San Francisco Giants. The Boys of Summer opened in Phoenix. After an encouraging Spring, the Giants looked good losing to the Diamondbacks. Two time Cy Young starter Tim Lincecum got shelled in the first inning, before buckling down in the second.

The Giants got to D-Backs starter Ian Kennedy in the 5th and 6th, but Giants errors and some more D-Backs fireworks sealed the Giants fate 5-4

There was much to celebrate for Giants' fans.

The first thing is, nobody got hurt! The Giants got 11 hits. Finally the Ian Kennedy puzzle that's bedeviled the Giants for two seasons is showing signs of getting solved.

Buster Posey played all nine innings behind the plate for the first time since his season ending ankle injury last May, and went 2 for 4 in the batter's box. One error was charged to Buster when he mishandled a weirdly spinning chopper that bounced in front of the plate and spun out of his glove. No harm no foul IMHO Buster is good as new.

The Giants play seven of their first nine games in the afternoon. This pleases this old baseball fan to no end! I still feel the sting from when I first heard the news that Chicago's Wrigley Field was installing lights for night games...the last Major League Yard to yield to Television's Will. Sure, baseball looks better under the lights on TV, but the deep shadows thrown by the  mid-afternoon Sun have been part and parcel of baseball for more than a century. Losing a high pop-up in the Sun is part of the drama, and the players are less likely to be injured in the heat of the day...think Midwest in August...Dog Days, anyone?

The Reno Aces beat the Colorado Springs Sky Sox 9-5 in Reno tonight...this time without the snowfall...

I did errands before the 4PM game. Wonder of wonders, my favorite Mexican Produce Market finally opened their store in the same town as the Ancestral Digs! The poor folks have flown the "Opening Soon" banner since November! Talking to the locals in line, it seems the County had a long list of hoops they had to jump through. I picked up some asparagus for half the Safeway price, asparagus that was a few days fresher, I might ad...perfect button crimini mushrooms were .99/lb, not $3.99/lb, and they had beautiful bunches of organic Golden Beets! Did I mention the Champagne Grapes? WooHoo!

I had a mind to have white fish for dinner. We've been doing a lot of chicken this week save for the Osso Buco from the slow cooker. I fancied some ahi sushi appetizers...barring that some hamachi, with some white fish done piccata-style for the main...I was thinking sole, preferably petrale.

The local Safeway was pretty proud of their fish. All their sole and snapper was $9.99/lb and up! I headed east and Lunardi's was prouder still ($29.99/lb for sashimi-grade ahi? Are you kidding me? That's Biblical Pride right there)...So I headed to Concord to the Mexican Produce Market Mothership (where they feature a fish market with live Dungeness Crab and Lobsters)

I did a quick reconnaissance of the aisles. Prices were exactly the same as in the more toney shopping center location by the Ancestral Digs, though the more crowded Mothership had many more choices, especially Asian and Indian produce. I struck out on a large eggplant, though...

In the back is the fish market. It was plugged with shoppers stocking up on Lenten Fare. I gazed at the crab and lobsters while the outnumbered fish mongers filled orders. Finally I got up to the cases. Oh My God, they had beautiful big snapper fillets for $3.49/lb! Here's my  white fish in spades! I bought twice as much as dinner required. The other two fillets will freeze up fine and hit the table next week.

Now that I think about it, Safeway did have a bunch of nice looking Standing Rib Roasts in the meat case for $5.99/lb. These have been going for $8.99/lb for a while now down here...I don't want to do a goose for Easter, after all...

Bone Appétit

Knocked Out!

That's what this cold did this weekend. It knocked me out...Late Saturday night I played fast and loose with bedtime to watch the rain-delayed Malaysian Grand Prix (and was rewarded with a bang-up race). I went to sleep at 4AM...and slept right through IndyCar's opener from St Petersberg, FL, and the NASCAR race from SoCal.


Darn thing is, now I'm sleeping from 2AM to 2PM in round numbers...the weather isn't helping either...a new March Miracle is tryin' to get born. Sunday (or was it Monday?) it rained more than 8 inches up in Marin county. I think we got 2-3 inches in the Inland Valley from that wave, and another inch or two today. Rain Wednesday, and more for the weekend.


It's been tough being sick and trying not to infect the rest of the family. Sister K started a new job Monday, and I wanted to cook dinner so she wouldn't have to, but I didn't dare to until Tuesday. I did a baked chicken dish with rice. I announced that dinner was ready, but everyone has to serve themselves, 'cause I don't want to give you my cold...oh, and there's salad in the refrigerator...


SturgeUrge phoned and we caught up. Salmon season opens April 7th, and we haven't been crab fishing since before Thanksgiving. This week's rains should flush the crab out of the bays, and back into our evil clutches!

Looking south from Richmond berth. Click for larger view.

We're trying to get a trip to Richmond in to tour the USS Iowa, but dodging these rainstorms makes it tough to visit the battleship because it's only open Saturdays and Sundays. They're painting the Iowa now, and servicing the hull and decks before she moves south to Los Angeles Harbor.

Proof In the Pudding

Custard is like pudding, right?

The homemade ice cream turned out to be hit and miss. The "Rocky Road With Crème de Cacao" is a hit. I sweetened the pot a bit...in addition to a half cup each of marshmallows, walnut pieces and semisweet chocolate chips, I added a like amount of white chocolate chips...mmmm, coco butter...

The "Ginger With Dark Rum" was a disappointment. The recipe said "fresh ginger gives this ice cream a fierce bite..." I guess the authors I and have a different measurement for fierce. When I was chilling the custard for this one, licking the spoon held no bite...fierce or otherwise. I had some crystallized ginger from last year in the pantry, so I chopped up a third of a cup and added it at the end of the churn. It did provide the bite, but I'd prefer the bite came from the ice cream itself.

This was a very creamy treat, the crunchy ginger bits took away from the luxurious mouth feel. The recipe called for 2oz of fresh ginger root, I used 2.5oz. I dunno if my ginger had been in the reefer too long (a little over two weeks), or if the blanching water stole all the gingerey hotness. I'm going to do some experiments...first up? Get out the Juicer and juice up a foot of ginger root and play with that first.

On the bright side, I breezed through the scalding, tempering, gelatin blooming and ice crushing with a kitchen towel, cutting board and a 22oz waffle head framing hammer.

Bigger Picture Calling:
After today's delightful Giants game, I got an email from Friend of CorduroyPlanet, BajaBabe, subject line: Calling:

"...you on your cell and all I get is a busy signal? Several other numbers are doing that also? Wonder if the solar flare has knocked out some signals? Still looking for the Rhubarb recipe."

I grabbed the phone and gave her a ring. "It seems to work goin' uphill" I said when she answered. We bantered for 20 minutes before we said goodbye. I told her that our garage door opener mysteriously opened during the first magnetic storm this week.

I got to thinking, and yes my phone has been acting a little strange over the last few days. Friday (after the garage door opener event) my phone was very garbled, no matter if I was in the DaveCave Cellular Sweet Spot or not. At the time I chalked it up to heavy traffic at my local cell tower. There were tons of skiers and boarders in town, and upon the mountain enjoying the fresh powder. It just may have been that solar flare and it's geomagnetic storm, not the Prefect Storm of powder and smartphones. We've unplugged the garage door opener until the eStorms pass...
 
Our old friend, sunspot AR1429 kicked out another CME Saturday., this one a M8 Class flare. Could be more aurora ahead...er, overhead...through Tuesday/Wednesday.

Churn Time Grab Bag

Time to churn the two ice creams.

Both flavors should be churned and in the freezer by the first pitch of today's Giants' spring training games...yes, I said games. They're called split squad games...the Giants face the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Angels today, the game against the Brewers is on the radio...KNBR 680AM

I'll post results this evening...

AR1429 erupted again with a M6 class CME which should arrive overnight tonight. Forecasters say this will kick up a stronger radiation storm than the the last one. Here's some useful links to help you view the aurora:

Space Weather is my Go-To Overview site.

NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center's Tips on Viewing the Aurora Page has predictions, Kp Index info and clickable visibility maps.

I Scream, You Scream

My apologies Ice Cream Lovers, I wrote last night about homemade ice cream and didn't even provide the recipes!

While recipes are mostly beyond the scope of CorduroyPlanet, here's what I'm making. These recipes come from the new ice cream cookbook, "Ice Cream Happy Hour"

Tonight, I'm making "Rocky Road With Crème de Cacao" because I love Rocky Road, and "Ginger With Dark Rum" which the cookbook touts as a "Dark and Stormy cocktail-inspired treat"

Perhaps ironically, I've got a little case of "cold feet"...it's been at least 15 years since I last scalded milk and cream, I'm sad to admit! Back in the mid-90s, I hosted a modest Ice Cream Social every Memorial Day to pump-up the Indy 500 viewing a little. In light of my trepidation, I spent a few minutes reviewing the scalding process in my 1976 "Joy Of Cooking" Know Your Ingredients chapter.

Oh, "Ice Cream Happy Hour" has a tutorial on making the custard  which says: "Continue heating until the mixture is steamy and makes a slight sizzling sound when you move the pan. This is called scalding."

Now I'm a German Engineer's Kid...the empirical kind...and I have a measurable hearing impairment, thanks to years of carpentry and running snowcats without the benefit of hearing protection, so I'm thankful to Ms Irma S Rombauer (she the Queen of Joy Of Cooking) for her visual clues method vis a vis scalding: "In practice, we rely on the age-old visual test for scalding, and in this book milk is scalded when tiny bubbles form around the edge of the pan, and the milk reaches around 180°."

So I have a big evening planned tonight...chopping, blanching, melting, scalding, steeping, separating, whisking, tempering, adding, spiking and chilling. I've been making extra ice cubes for a couple of days, getting ready to churn my new treats.

Tomorrow I churn! If you chill the ice cream custard for at least eight hours before you churn, the ice cream will turn out much creamier than if you rush things.

Extra creaminess without extra cream? Count me in! Taste tests and recipe reviews tomorrow!
Icve

Grinding It Out

How did I get this tired? I got a full night of sleep, languished in the sack this morning, before I ran the snow blower for a whole five minutes before sitting around the Truckee DMV Office waiting for my number to come up...or my appointment time to arrive.

Time won...the woman in the cheetah print overcoat loved the low number I handed off to her...I bet it made her day...I saved her an hour+ of waiting.

I went back to my bank for my new ATM Card...to the post office to see if a Good Samaritan found my wallet and dropped it into my Post Office...sadly, no...

Longs Drugs sold billfolds...CVS doesn't. Grabbed a $10 Nylon Billfold at Porter's. It's better than the one I lost...though the olive drab camo of the old one did start a conversation or two!

I was back at the DaveCave by 3PM, and spent the rest of the afternoon shredding junk mail...mostly pre-approved credit card solicitations, and old credit card statements. I pay my bills online, the paper bills remind me to do my due diligence every billing cycle...saved me $10.05  once...

Anyway, why am I so tired? Couldn't have been watching a lot of the 37 Hours of the Daytona 500! I laid about Saturday morning while the race announcers vamped for hour upon hour...raggin' on and on about the rain and Twitter of all things. There's only so many questions that race car drivers can pontificate on...Finally, the Daytona 500 was postponed for the first time in 54 years.

No problemo...Monday was gonna be snowy outside, I'm without my wallet and Debit Card, and the pantry is stocked...I'm set for NASCAR's Super Bowl! The race is postponed again, now until 4PM Pacific.

Still snowy out, I prepped a batch of Bakesale Betty's Fried Chicken Sandwiches...lunches for the next couple of days, anyway...

I turned up the sound on the TV just before the green flag fell, and Darrell Waltrip shouted: "Let's go racin' boys, and Danica!"

That didn't take long..."The Big One" happened on Lap 2...Danica's car caught enough of it to send her car behind the wall for a new rear end housing and all that goes with it...she started near the back after starting from the Pole in Saturday's Nationwide Series Race...after quite a while she rejoined 38 laps down.

Rules changes brought back Pack Racing for the most part, and the late start and cool temps all but eliminated the two-by-two drafting that we saw all week. Under the Florida sun, in 80° temps there was a hybrid of pack racing and two-by-two drafting. Two cars could hook up and escape, but they couldn't stay paired for more than a couple of minutes before the pusher started to overheat. It was the best of both worlds...

Back at the Daytona 500, the pack stayed together through the race. Needless to say, the Lap 2 wreck was just the first Big One. There were 9-10 yellow flag periods...plus a red flag that stopped the race with 40 Laps to go...for another Two Hours!

Here's what happened. During a caution period, Juan Pablo Montoya exited the pits after some work was done on his #42 Target Chevrolet and was accelerating along the bottom of the track to catch the rest of the pack behind the Pace Car. A couple of Safety Trucks were towing Jet Dryers at the top of the Turn 3 banking (31° steep banking!) blowing tire debris down to the infield.

At about 100MPH, something under Montoya's #42 broke in a shower of sparks, and he spun up the track right into the leading jet dryer causing a huge explosion!

Montoya's car was destroyed, but he climbed out of the wreckage as soon as it came to a stop in the infield. The Safety Truck driver was shaken, but not stirred, and helped by the Safety Patrol to walk down the extreme banking.

When they were halfway down the track, the spilled jet fuel found an ignition source and a huge river of fire ran down the track.

I've never seen anything like it! In the darkness, it looked Biblical...the fire burned for several minutes before track fire crews finally doused the flames. It turns out the jet dryers carry 200 gallons of Jet-A fuel!

Take a minute to ponder the irony..."Safety Truck" = hot jet engine+200 gallons of Jet Fuel in a simple aluminum tank, not in a fuel cell like the race cars, all mounted on a slow moving trailer, with 30+ racecars whizzing by at 70+MPH under caution

A funny thing happened during the Red Flag...the race cars were all parked on the back straight, while the fire was doused and the track dried and repaired. From his #2 Miller Lite Dodge, Brad Keselowski took a photo of the fire scene with his iPhone and Tweeted it.

 The rest is history... Read the linked article, especially if you don't "get" Twitter...The TV talk quickly turned to twitter before the race was finally restarted.

Who was expecting a Green/White/Checker Finish? Only everybody watching! Matt Kenseth won his second Daytona 500 in his #17 Roush-Fenway Best Buy Ford.

Twitter during the race, and especially during the red flag was almost as much Snarky Fun as Live Tweeting the Oscars Sunday night! Getting a laugh with 140 characters or less takes some doin'...

Jeez, the wind is really howling now (12:15AM) I'll wrap this up and log off before the power goes off! Good Night!

Too Early?

...for Spring Fever? I may have an early case coming on...

It's 11AM, I'm halfway through a pot of French Roast, as I prep an Asparagus Frittata for "brunch"...

Both asparagus and artichokes are appearing in the grocery stores at mid-season prices now...can "real" springtime be far off? The Spring Equinox is still a month away...

...oh yeah, the Green Flag just dropped on the first Gatorade Duel at Daytona International Speedway! The Twin 150s are qualifiers for Sunday's Daytona 500. The slower cars are trying to race their way into the Big Show. The final four spots are up for grabs...oh, and ambient temps are above 80F under sunny skies!

Of course I'm multitasking...I'm following Formula One pre-season testing from Barcelona via Twitter too.

The F1 teams are trying to log as much data as possible about Pirelli's new tires, and how the tires interface with the new aero rules. The blown diffusers are history, and strict new Sporting Regulations prohibit using exhaust gasses to generate downforce.

The 2012 Sporting Regulations specify reduced downforce, the tires are closer time-wise between compounds, and have improved longevity, with the bonus of generating much fewer "marbles" which will preserve the more novel "passing zones". I'm not sure my ticker can stand better racing than last season, but I can't hardly wait for March 18th's Season Opener in Brisbane, Australia!

OK...having caught up on F1, I can focus now on the Good Old Boys in Daytona. (It's already 9PM in Barcelona!)

NASCAR has new aero rules this year too...on the restrictor plate tracks the two car draft is gone, and they're racing in a pack again...this is another of those Good News/Bad News Deals...

The restrictor plates are mandated to keep the speeds on the super speedways below light speeds...to tell you the truth, I'd like to see them can the plates and slow 'em down with aero restrictions. I love the draft and the old "slingshot" moves.

There's another new regime in NASCAR this year. Say adios to carburetors, and hola Fuel Injection. I don't know how much driver adjustability NASCAR new rules allow, but this could really obscure the fuel mileage strategy, especially on super speedways...

In the first Gatorade Duel today they had a little "Big One"...nobody hurt, but lots of wrecked race cars...No "Big One" in today's second qualifier.

What I said about Springtime? Judging by the local gas station it must be Memorial Day in Pepperland!

Braised

If I had to pick a theme to describe the past week, it would be colorful.

The Inland Valley was a riot of color, even when it was drizzling.

Fruit trees are in blossom, acacia trees are fully ablaze with bright yellow blooms, and emerald green shoots of emerging grass color every hill and dale.

At the SturgeUrge Compound, the moss is vivid green and his camellias are a riot of blooms.

Everywhere I traveled, the daffodils and paperwhites were at their peak. Hat tip to CalTrans for the white narcissus along westbound I80 just west of Davis!

I crossed the Big Valley on my way home Wednesday. It was so warm I fired up the air conditioning...even though I was wearing just running shorts and a t-shirt. Sacramento reported 68°F...it had to be chilly at the airport, it was toasty along Interstate 80!

Back on the mountain, the colors faded to gray. It's been a week since the last measurable snowfall, so it's just so much dirty spring snow...and Spring is still a whole month away...

The resorts reported 12-18 inches last week...only vestiges were visible alongside the roads.

I did stop at my favorite Asian market in Vacaville for a tray of Mini Bok Choi and some shitake mushrooms. These are the tiniest Bok Choi I've ever seen!

Sticking with my theme, I made a colorful dinner Tuesday night:

Rhubarb-Braised Pork Chops. The recipe is really for Rhubarb-Braised Chicken Thighs, though I've yet to make it with chicken...

Comfort Food

I finally touched bases with SturgeUrge tonight. We (I should say he) barbequed dinner tonight.

Recently SturgeUrge was the lucky recipient of an antique Komodo Kamado BBQ. This Japanese BBQ was the model for the more widely known "Big Green Egg" BBQ. Urge thinks this one is 50-60 years old.

It does a great job making juicy treats of everyday meat and poultry. (SturgeUrge hasn't cooked any seafood in it yet)

Urge cooked excellent pork loin chops, and some chicken breasts that I had in stock. They needed to be cooked because they've been hanging in the reefer since last Friday! I used half of the tray Monday in stir-fry, and the family has been chowing on leftovers all week!

While SturgeUrge handled the flesh cooking, I made the vegetable course. I made Garlic-ey Baby Bok Choi with Shitake  Mushrooms.

On my way across the Big Valley Monday, I stopped in Vacaville at my favorite Asian market, Country Square Market. It's the last of (I think) three stores. Last summer the store two towns away from the Ancestral Digs closed their doors when their landlord doubled the rent with 30 days notice...I stocked up at close-out prices, but their produce and seafood offerings are sorely missed. None of the remaining Asian markets in the Inland Valley have baby bok choi as "baby" as Country Square...try three timed taller! These little babies are just an inch and a half tall...two inches tops! I end up cutting barely half of a tray in half before cooking!

Dinner was a hit! The Kamodo pork chops were perfect, and my bok choi was awesome too!

The main course was planning our next dungeness crab trip. The tide calendar says not this week...next week SturgeUrge is spending his week at Tahoe. We're hoping to get a day of ice fishing in, but there better be a cold snap first.

I reconnoitered Boca Reservoir before I came off the hill, and the ice is too rotten and thin to fish through. The forecast isn't promising either.

I will be grabbing some more baby bok choi on my way back up the hill...ice fishing my have to wait...Ocean Salmon is still two months away...

Another crab trip is definitely in order!

Christmas Shopping

I don't have a big Christmas Shopping List. There are no little children in our family, so we adults have downsized the gift exchange. I've been making presents for the family for the last few years.

When my Dad took ill a few years ago, I became the Thanksgiving Chef for the family. Aside from Mom's famous jello ring salad, there was no paper trail to Thanksgiving Feast Nirvana.

Now Dad was no Galloping Gourmet, but he did enjoy making the Thanksgiving turkey feast. The feast was Dad's culinary Mt Olympus...but no known recipes survive him. I never saw a scrap of paper in the kitchen while he joyously prepared the bird and all the fixins.

I found my recipes in my email inbox! I subscribed to "Fine Cooking" magazine from their first issue, and for several years before I didn't renew as part of the simplification jag I got on when I moved to the DaveCave. When the magazine came to the internet, I signed up for their weekly newsletter, and many of the key recipes I used came from their Thanksgiving newsletter that first year. Without exception, they were all a hit.

The next Thanksgiving was our first without Dad. The recipes I'd printed from the ,magazine's website were lost in the shuffle. Fine Cooking's website evolved into a membership site, and I couldn't search it unless I joined and paid up. This was no way to run an airline...fortunately Thanksgiving was still a couple of months away.

The November newsletter arrived, and the recipes were no longer pay-walled. With a sigh of relief, my idea of a Family Cookbook was born. Everyone in the family got a copy for Christmas, and every Christmas since, I give new pages with new finds from Mom's recipe file, and recipes I've culled from the newspaper and my Food Channel favorite chefs. The cookbooks are looseleaf binders with a photo of Dad carving the turkey on the front, and Mom watching the show from the kitchen table on the back. I print the pages on National Geographic's Adventure Paper, which is waterproof once the printer ink dries. It's not actually paper, it's tear proof too. It's heavy and has a surface feel like velvet. I suspect it's made of spun olefin fiber similar to Tyvek housewrap.

This year's pages are the Thanksgiving recipes. Some of the Juicy ones I blogged about in November.

So I finished my shopping when I woke up a little early tonight. I won't be home for Christmas...not on the 25th anyway...I'm taking the train home from our family Christmas, when we have it later in the week.

Juicy

I just love leftovers from Thanksgiving! Today I had a turkey sandwich on whole wheat for breakfast. I almost drooled the Homer Simpson donut noise...it was that good!

I snacked on some dark meat around four in the afternoon, and enjoyed a reheated turkey dinner with a new batch of braised brussels sprouts for dinner. (Thanks Sister K!) Even after sitting in a Ziploc bag for 24 hours in the garage refrigerator, the breast meat was so juicy...not to mention yummy!

Perfect Turkey Hints:
Here's the trick I use to insure a succulent turkey breast every time I roast a bird...it's all about orientation...I owe it all to Fine Cooking Magazine. I lifted the tip from one of their email newsletters in 2008. Save the link for Juicy Roast Turkey, bookmark it, you'll never roast a whole turkey any other way ever again!

Here's the secret: Roast the turkey upside down for the first hour in the oven! That's all there is to it! I know it sounds a little daunting turning a hot slippery turkey over after it's been roasting for an hour in a 325°F oven, but it's a snap...oven mitts on each hand with a wad of paper towels, and it's over and done in under 20 seconds!

I learned a new trick when turning yesterday's bird. I don't stuff the bird, I make my Cornbread and Italian Sausage Stuffing on the stovetop and finish it in the oven, so I just grabbed the bird by the body cavity and with a lift and a twist of the wrist, it was breast side up for the duration!

Here's another tip to insure a great roast turkey...buy a decent bird to begin with! I swear by Sonora's Diestel Turkey Ranch. I've never bought another turkey since the first Diestel I tried. I get mine at Lunardi's Market in Walnut Creek. Safeway has 'em too. I buy a fresh one, not frozen. They taste like turkey!

Stuffing Recipe Hints:
I prefer to use mild sausage, but I fatten up the pinch of crushed red chilies.
I prefer red and yellow bell peppers to red and green...the stuffing is much brighter without the unripe (green) bells. (I don't taste 'em later if they aren't in there either)
If you make the cornbread from the linked recipe, halve the salt.
I use white spelt flour instead of white wheat flour in the cornbread...originally because the Siskyou Wing of the family thought they had a problem with wheat gluten. When it turned out they were A-OK with the gluten, I kept using the spelt for it's extra nutty flavor.

After all was said and done, I managed not to succumb to the Turkey Coma...in fact I was still goin' strong when the 11 O'clock News came on. I watched KCRA3's newscast, and they had some footage from Sugar Bowl of holiday skiers sliding down the slopes. Except for the overcast and the flat light, it looked for all the world like late-April snow...I mean slush! The reporter doing the story said it was more springlike than holiday weather...that was one juicy looking trail!

Don't think I wasn't paying attention! I looked at the remote sensors, I didn't see enough cold temps to make snow going back for a week at least, and the last blast of cold-enough temps was accompanied by very high winds.

Looking ahead, the forecast isn't promising...I even looked at Sacramento's AFD (maybe the Chamber of Commerce-Style forecast might feature a glimmer of hope!) Reno's AFD concured, a Blocking Ridge builds in and temps trend up, up, up for the next week. Oh, and the inversion layer stays.

That's a lot of juicy afternoons on the horizon...maybe the NWS forecasters will have time to answer a phonecall and chat about the forecast models and haw the help fine tune them going forward...

A man's gotta have a dream...

Set To Simmer

CorduroyPlanet will be in the kitchen all day preparing the Thanksgiving Feast. There's some football games on TV as well.

I'll keep an ear to the rail as much as events allow, but CorduroyPlanet will be on the down low for the Holiday Weekend.

Phobos/Grunt will stay in orbit, the forecast storms for Thursday and the weekend are under-preforming vis a vis their forecasts.

You know I'll post if anything interesting flicks my switch...

Happy Thanksgiving! CorduroyPlanet thanks you for reading.

Bounty From The Bay

Tonight we enjoyed another Classic San Francisco Treat. Steamed Dungeness Crab with sourdough bread and a California wine...made all the more special by the company...in this case family.

Dinner was served in the dining room because we all wouldn't fit at the kitchen table. Your humble crab pot puller was joined by the Siskiyou Wing of the family, Sister K and her Hubby, and our Mom. The Siskiyou Wing contributed a Thai Hot and Sour Soup with coconut milk and a nice Pinot Grigio to join the Blanc de Noir and Chardonney.

The conversation was warm, the crab sweet and nutty, and the weather dry...like the bubbly. We tried to decide when we'd celebrate Thanksgiving. With all the families in the family now, picking when to holiday gets a little complicated...logistically speaking. As the hold-out single guy (and Thanksgiving Chef) it's only the weather that informs my availability.

I've been keeping a close eye on the remote sensors and webcams that confirmed the warming trend the NWS forecasters touted as they walked back the latest cold front's precipitation content and arrival time.

I hate to sound like a stuck record, but each of these Fall Systems is thumbing it's nose at the Forecast Models...arriving later than the models predict, and coming in at less than advertized strength. It may be a little premature to call a trend...so let's say it's trending towards a trend.

I'm liking my 75%-85% of average precipitation call for the Winter more with each storm. It will definitely be colder than average...take that to the bank.

The Big Tease

Tonight the mercury just doesn't want to fall those last few degrees. Snowmakers earn it when they're watching the thermometer.

The Reno AFD says the cold front will bring some snow Thursday evening...not a bunker-buster exactly, but snowfall in early November none the less...

I wrapped my chores this afternoon, so I can make my final escape to the Inland Valley before Thanksgiving ushers in the new season. I'm the family turkey chef now that my Dad's passed away, I treasure the Thanksgiving ritual...two days in the kitchen. I love those free range turkeys from Sonora.They seem a little pricy...until you taste 'em!

I guess I'm plugged in for ski season now...I've been looking in on Boreal since sundown...and the nearby PWS stations tell the story. After getting down into the low 30s, the temps are rising into the 40's

You can't see 'em, but here's Boreal's snowmaking crew...really earning it.

No worries...natural snow by this time Thursday!

Snug

I declare tonight to be the first winter night of the 2011/2012 season.

I woke up this morning to almost four inches of snow on the front porch of the DaveCave. The few straggler flakes soon turned to drizzle. The sky started to show some blue around the noon hour, and I got out and shoveled about 2PM.

The clouds continued to lift, and by 3PM, I had the car and the pickup swept free of snow, and the driveway cleared. I even made a dash downtown for a sack of groceries.

I caught up with the cleaning...bathroom, dishes, laundry and set about making another okra dish for dinner.

I made cornbread from scratch and sauteed pork chops with okra, roasted corn, and tomatoes. I could see some fine peach and coral color in the sky through the window behind the kitchen sink. There's a lot to like about okra. The cornbread was great too...maybe it was just that little bit sweeter because the Yankees lost!

So, now I'm all cozy in the DaveCave...all the windows are closed save for one slightly ajar for some ventilation...it's so quiet, and I'm so comfy under the comforter with my mountain of pillows. The 11 O'Clock News promised morning temps in the 20s, the clouds have moved on so it's gonna be frigid out.

The forecast says the storm has moved on and the warming begins in the morning. There's still the matter of Indian Summer...let's hope La Niña doesn't intervene.