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| Happy Fourth! Ann's Pallet Flag in the Back Yard |
It was quite a stunning day, weatherwise, and we spent nearly the entire day outdoors as we are wont to do now in our dry season. In Oregon, we make the most of the summer, because it rains for the rest of the year. The morning we spent on the back patio, doing the daily crossword with coffee, and watching the hummingbird forays through the flower gardens.
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| Eggs with Salmon, Chives, Capers, and Sour Cream |
Around mid-day, we migrated to the front patio and ate breakfast about one in the afternoon with a scramble designed to use the fat belly flaps off the steelhead trout that I broke down the day before. In addition to the trout, in the eggs are sour cream, capers, and chives from the garden. It was delicious, but I won't mix sour cream in with the eggs again. The sour cream disrupted the normal creamy texture of the eggs to yield a slightly grainier dish that wept water. Live and learn.
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| Red, White, and Blue Berry Smash |
About three and feeling a bit morose, Ann declared it Happy Hour, "We need a red, white, and blue cocktail!" During this pandemic, our house cannot be the only one in which 5 o'clock comes at random times. I rummaged the kitchen and ended up with a cross between a gin and tonic and a Tom Collins: red raspberries, white liquor, and blueberries. It was tart, refreshing, and the recipe will follow in a subsequent post because Ann wants me to remember it for the future. If I don't write it down, it will be gone from my head in 48 hours.
Oh yeah, shout out to our neighbor Rennika who brought us the berries from her family's farm! Blueberries and all manner of caneberries are a staple agricultural product of our valley.
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| Bison Burger with English Cheddar, Pickles, and Bacon |
In looking back over previous posts about July 4, a consistent theme seems to be burgers. We don't eat them that often, so they have become something of a treat for us and something of a 4th ritual. We picked up a package of ground bison at Costco earlier in the week, just for burgers. Bison has such a great meaty flavor that is sadly lacking from most beef these days. The meat is a little leaner than I like for a good burger, but so very tasty.
While I was out shopping, I forgot to get a bag of chips to accompany our burgers. How sad is it that I didn't just run up to the store two minutes away and grab a bag? How sad is it that I have to weigh the potential risk for bringing this damned virus home to Ann every time I think about leaving the house? How sad is it that there are no casual trips out, only necessary ones? This pandemic sucks.
We made the reluctant decision earlier in the week to opt out of the neighborhood Fourth gathering, for two reasons. First, the incidence of virus is growing here in Oregon, albeit not as bad as in other locales, and second, our dog Grace is absolutely terrified of fireworks. We wanted to be home to comfort her. Charlie doesn't like the fireworks so well, but he's so damned deaf now that he curled up and slept through them.
Even though it doesn't get dark here this time of year until after 10pm, the booms and pops started about 9:30. Reluctantly we went inside, to help muffle some of the sound and put Grace at more ease, scant good that it did do.
I really, really wanted to be out in the alley behind our houses, kicking back a few brews and watching fireworks, if not to totally seem normal, at least to get the hell out of the house and interact with human beings other than my wife. It's a small sacrifice to skip the fireworks, I know, but it certainly seems a much larger sacrifice in a day when every decision seems to be a sacrifice or at least a tradeoff against health risk.
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