DRT: GoodDog! to Big Eddy

I have now walked all of the publicly accessible trail along the Deschutes between Sunriver and Bend. Yesterday, I walked the final little section between the private property where LOGE sits (sat; it is closed now) and Meadow Day Use Area.  I have avoided this section in the past because it is among the more crowded sections of the trail, especially because it runs through the GoodDog! off-leash area. A bonus is that all those people come with happy dogs and I got to meet a lot of awesome dogs. Usually, I park in the middle at Dillon Falls and go upstream to Benham, downstream to Meadow, or some combination of upstream and downstream.

I parked at Rimrock Trailhead and walked into the sun up and over the rim rock, then down to the river, then south along the river to Big Eddy where I turned around, a total of a bit more than 10 miles. The following photos are more or less in the order I shot them.

Ample Frost as I Scaled the Rim Rock

Winter 2026, Where is the Snow?

Fencing Around Restoration Area

Pebble Garden

Unmistakable Lodgepole Pine Cones
They Remain on the Tree Until They Disintegrate

Mature Lodgepole Bark
When Younger, the Bark is Scaly

Columnar Jointing in the Basalt

More Columns

Greenleaf Manzanita Blooming Early This Year

River Opposite Deschutes River Woods is Flat

Male Mallards are Getting Frisky

River Scum in an Eddy

Creeping Oregon Grape
Low Growing, Matte Burgundy Leaves

Holly-Leaved Oregon Grape
Tall Growing, Shiny Deep Wine-Colored Leaves

Pygmy Nuthatches Everywhere
All Three Nuthatches in Evidence Yesterday
Pygmy, Red-Breasted, and White-Breasted

Cattail Along Slough Behind Seventh Mountain

Prince of Pine, Lava Island

Main Stem of Deschutes from Lava Island
Accessible in Winter, No Water in High Water Channel

Crumbly Lava and Fissures
Required Careful Footing Placement

Fissure in Lava Atop Lava Island
Island is Remnant of 7000-Year Old Flow from Lava Butte

Empty High Water Channel at Lava Island

Impressive Witches' Broom
Infection From Mistletoe Causes Excess Growth

Another Crazy Witches Broom

Western Dwarf Mistletoe Causes Witches' Brooms

Ponderosa Framed Against the River
Red Osier Dogwoods in the Background

How Many Times Have I Taken This Shot?
Part of Big Eddy Snaking Through the Lava
Water Level is Low in Winter; Being Impounded in the Reservoirs

Massive Ponderosa Stump

At Big Eddy, Water Slamming into Lava
Deflecting to the Middle of the River

Something Zen About This Rock Garden

Dried Bloom Stalk from Woodland Pinedrops

This Female Common Merganser Swam Alongside for 15 Minutes

Females are Famous for Woody Woodpecker Tresses
Males Have Deep Green Smooth Heads

Scraggly Male Hairy Woodpecker
Using Tail as a Prop

Iron Oxide Red on Columnar Basalt in GoodDog!

The Rim Rock on a Gorgeous Day

Round Hole Called Tafoni
Unusual but not Rare in Basalt

So far, this has been the winter that was not: no snow on the mountains, no snowshoeing, and April-like days in January and February. Although the weather has been great for letting me hike through the winter, I fear for fire season.

New Year's Eve: Latke Board

New Year's Eve 2025 is right at the top of my list of most memorable year-end celebrations. And for all the wrong reasons. Somehow, I picked up a nasty case of food poisoning, and by the time that midnight rolled around, I had all the classic symptoms.

The cautious drive home down the slippery butte in the icy and misting rain-fog-snow mess was excruciating as I fought back wave after wave of gut wrenching nausea. I finally got to sleep around 0300 and when I awoke the next morning, I had strained the ribs on my right side. Fun times.

I should have known something was up earlier; I did not even feel like taking photos which is uncharacteristic.

Small Potato Latkes for NYE Caviar

We made plans with Rob and Dyce to have caviar and Champagne at their house to ring in the new year. All of us really like caviar and I happen to like latkes with my caviar, although the more I think about it, really great potato chips are fantastic and so much easier. In any case, a couple years ago, I came up with an idea for New Year's along the lines of a charcuterie board: a latke board. I had never heard of or seen anyone doing any such thing, but when I typed the phrase into my handy dandy search engine, up popped thousands of photos of people who beat me to the punch.

This reminds me that there is little truly original thought in cooking; dishes are built from a long lineage of precursors. Long ago in my restaurant days, a line cook from another restaurant angrily confronted me outside my restaurant, accusing me of stealing a dish from the menu at his restaurant. As busy as I was, I did not have the time or the energy to look at another restaurant's menu, let alone steal a dish.

I believe that it might have been some kind of beet and goat cheese salad. Because people have been putting beets and goat cheese as long as there have been beets and goat cheese, I am certain that it was not original to either the young cook's restaurant or mine. It was on thousands of menus long before our two.

In any case, my latke board idea reminds me that two people can come up with the same idea independently. My idea was to make several different kinds of latkes, a few pickles, and a few spreads, all of which would work with caviar.

Shallot Pickles and Cucumber Pickles Curing

My Latke Board
Potato, Celery Root, and Sweet Potato Latkes
Cucumber, Shallot, and Cornichon Pickles
Smoked Trout Mousse, Saffron Aïoli, Horseradish-Dill Sour Cream
Smoked Salmon and Caper Mousse

If you can name a root vegetable, I have made latkes from it, and likely fries and chips, or for you Brits, chips and crisps. Of the three vegetables that I picked for this latke board, potatoes will always be the best, but celery root latkes are equally phenomenal. The little sugar in sweet potato latkes is interesting, but makes the latkes want to stick to the pan and want to burn before they are done. Reducing the heat is necessary for making sweet potato latkes.

Latkes with smoked trout mousse was a regular feature of the lunch menu at the restaurant for many years, probably a decade. Ultimately, I believe it was a series of fad diets that did them in. For many years, the ladies who lunch would not order anything fried, no matter how tasty. In any case, apparently I had a reputation for making latkes, as the following cute "diploma" will attest. My oldest daughter, then but a tiny girl, awarded me a "specialty in making potato pancakes." How cute is this!?!

Chef's Diploma with
Specialty in Making Potato Pancakes

For caviar for the restaurant, I always bought from Browne Trading Company in Maine. I still buy from them, but the retail prices are a shock after paying wholesale for decades. Rob bought caviar from a company that is new to me, OM. Their ossetra and Browne's Siberian Supreme malossol were the best of the bunch.

We All Bought Caviar

Potato Chips, Best Vehicle for Caviar

Being the designated driver, I could only but sip a little of the delicious Champagne on offer at Rob and Dyce's. I managed to photograph the two that we bought so that I could remember them. The Gonet-Médeville is a lovely blanc de noirs. The André Clouet "Chalky" looks pretty gimmicky in its white wrap, but it is a fine 100% Chardonnay blanc de blancs. I like it, but I like many others better.

Here's hoping that 2026 proves better than New Year's Eve's inauspicious start.

Christmas Dinner

Ann wanted to have a small Christmas dinner on Christmas Day at our house, despite our being at Rob and Dyce's the evening before for a wonderful fondue, of which I took no photos. After a series of holiday parties with a big New Year's celebration to come within the week, it was almost too much. Next year we need to slow things down.

We thought about doing a Feast of the Seven Fishes, but consuming such a vast meal requires a small army that we are not prepared to serve in our home. Moreover, outside of the restaurant trade, finding decent seafood in this food desert is nigh on impossible.

Instead, Ann hit on the theme of three pastas, each in the color of the Italian flag: red, white, and green. In the weeks before Christmas, we set about throwing pasta dishes at the proverbial wall to see what would stick. For me, it was important that we have only one dish made at the last minute, so that I would not be chained to the stove all night. After a couple of days of kicking ideas around, we settled on three dishes.

Cookie Fairy Making Rosemary-Orange-Olive Oil Shortbreads

Ann had already decided she was making shortbreads with rosemary, orange, and olive oil for dessert. That left antipasti to figure out, one with meat and one without. The without came easily enough: a green olive olivada (tapenade less anchovies) served with crackers and a neutral double or triple cream cheese.

Olivada, Crackers, Triple Cream Cheese, Grissini

For meat, somehow we got fixated on vitello tonnato. I decided to keep the meat raw in the form of a tartare and use the tuna sauce for garnish. I thought it was a neat idea; I was alone in this thinking apparently, judging from the amount of leftovers that I turned into burgers the next day. The tonnato sauce was the best I have ever made. I think I scared people with raw meat.

Vitello Tonnato
Veal Tartare on Crostini with Tonnato Sauce and Capers

For the red pasta, I stuffed conchiglioni (large shells) with pulled short rib that I braised a couple of days before in a really intense beef stock. I mixed the short rib with ricotta to lighten it just a little and covered the whole in a quick marinara.

Here's a tip for the shells. I bought really excellent quality shells with a recommended 16- to 18-minute cook time. The day before, I boiled them for four minutes, then chilled them immediately in cold water. After tossing them in a little olive oil to keep them from sticking together, I put them in a seal top bag in the fridge overnight. The next day, they were perfect for stuffing, pliable but holding their shape rather than flopping around and closing up like fully cooked shells.

Baked Conchiglioni Stuffed with Short Rib and Ricotta
Topped with Marinara

Ann insisted on potato gnocchi which we made the day before. I rolled out and cut the gnocchi while Ann boiled them in small batches. Before people arrived, I made a speck and parmigiano cream. While the green pasta was cooking, I browned the refrigerated gnocchi and then poured the sauce over at dinner time. Everybody loved these; they were too rich for my taste.

Potato Gnocchi with Speck and Parmigiano Cream

The green pasta for me was a no-brainer, the word green sending me directly to basil for which Liguria is famous. The Ligurians serve their pesto on their traditional cut of pasta called trofie, hundreds and hundreds of pounds we rolled out at the restaurant. Not wanting to roll out trofie for this dinner, I screwed up and ordered in some dried trofie, which despite being imported from Italy, was crap. I am still kicking myself for not investing the half an hour it would have taken to make fresh trofie. Nobody but Ann and me seemed to notice; still I do not like using second rate ingredients.

Trofie al Pesto with Torn Basil and Toasted Pine Nuts

I think we were all pretty much partied out by the time Christmas Day rolled around. Unlike several prior nights, it was not a late night. I think we were all stuffed too, but fortunately, I was able to send home some of the copious leftovers.

Here's My Plate with All Three Pastas

Buon Natale!