Sunday, December 31, 2017

New Year's Eve at Home

Why would you want to spend New Year's Eve at home?

Considering I have worked the prior 15 New Year's Eves as the chef and owner of a restaurant, the answer to that question ought to be obvious! If I never see the inside of a restaurant on New Year's Eve, that will be just fine with me. And of course, Annie was over the moon to have me at home. So we headed to the grocery store to see what we could find. I was in a seafood mood, but there's no good seafood in any grocery store around here. The best we could do was to grab a pound of Dungeness crab, wicked expensive and to my East Coast-born and -bred palate, not as tasty as blue crab. So I decided to do a crab risotto.

While standing in the store, Annie started describing an appetizer that she wanted, "something with mushrooms, gooey, and sexy!" Instantly I flashed on a mushroom crostino, so we got some dried porcini, some fresh shiitakes, and a small piece of funky Taleggio cheese to finish the mushrooms with.

Pashey Sparkling by Trisaetum

Leeks and Shiitakes

Porcini, Shiitake, Leek, and Taleggio Crostini

Who's Happy?

Risotto in the Works with Pancetta

Mise: Pancetta, Goat Cheese, Crab, and Chives

Dungeness Crab Risotto with Pancetta, Chives, and Goat Cheese

Our 52-Hike Challenge 2017

On January 1, 2017 as Ann and I were headed to Harper's Ferry WV for our first hike of 2017, Ann told me of something she read about on a hiking site, a 52-Hike Challenge in which participants strive to make 52 hikes in a 52-week period. She asked if I might be up for it. Why not?

Our real challenge is that I work 6 days a week and 7 days some weeks. That leaves fewer than 52 days a year for hiking especially if you factor in days off for sickness and really bad weather. In any case, challenge accepted for the calendar year 2017 and this is our saga.

Update November 30, 2017: We're definitely not going to make our goal this year. With Carter going off to college in early August, we lost our dog-sitter on Sundays, making it really hard to get away. Then we spent a month closing the restaurant and packing for our move to Oregon and another two weeks driving across the country. Then we spent a month getting established at work and then finding and buying a house. That brings us up to the end of November and still no dog-sitter. Here's hoping that we find our routine and can get back to hiking soon.


Hike
Date
Hike (click through)
Mileage
32
Oct 14, 2017
4.5
31
Oct 10, 2017
4.5
30
Aug 20, 2017
6.0
29
Aug 13, 2017
5.0
28
Aug 6, 2017
5.1
27
Jul 23, 2017
10.9
26
Jul 17, 2017
3.3
25
Jul 9, 2017
12.2
24
Jul 4, 2017
6.5
23
Jul 3, 2017
7.5
22
Jul 2, 2017
10.5
21
Jun 25, 2017
8.0
20
May 21, 2017
11
19
May 14, 2017
11.8
18
May 6, 2017
9.1
17
May 4, 2017
9.5
16
May 3, 2017
6.0
15
May 2, 2017
3.0
14
May 1, 2017
7.8
13
Apr 30, 2017
2.6
12
Apr 23, 2017
7.0
11
Apr 16, 2017
7.0
10
Apr 9, 2017
10.0
9
Apr 2, 2017
8.0
8
Mar 19, 2017
7.2
7
Mar 3, 2017
6.0
6
Feb 26, 2017
10.2
5
Feb 19, 2017
12.3
4
Feb 12, 2017
11.9
3
Feb 5, 2017
12.2
2
Jan 29, 2017
9.2
1
Jan 1, 2017
5.4


Total
251.2

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Neskowin Beach OR

Carter is out on Christmas Break visiting with us and we wanted to show him the Oregon Coast so we headed out to Highway 101 at Lincoln City and then just north to Neskowin where Neskowin Creek empties into the Pacific.


Hawk/Kiwanda Creek

Looking Across Neskowin Creek

Rough Surf and Cold Wind

Wind Patterns in the Sand

Proposal Rock Right


Sea Flea in Chuck Track

So Sunny, Shot at f/36

Sun, Fog, and Trees

Merganser in Neskowin Creek

Reflections

Old Chef, New Trick

The last time I ate at Taco Bell would have been when my daughters were tiny young things. My eldest, Lillie, loved their bean burritos and ...