The House of Good Smells

Happy 11th Anniversary to Us!

Saturday the 30th was the 11th anniversary of the sunny and happy day that we gathered with friends and family in our back yard in Winchester, Virginia and made our marriage official. Naturally, we wanted to celebrate and had been planning our anniversary dinner for a couple of weeks, both of us having arrived separately at having dinner at home versus going out to eat. Restaurants in Bend have let us down consistently this summer and I think we were both looking for something really good for dinner.

I call this post "The House of Good Smells" for a very obvious reason. Thanks to cooler outdoor temperatures, this was really the first time that I cranked up the oven and cooked for a lengthy period of the day, perfuming the air with the sinful smells of baking bread, sautéing mushrooms, and braising pork. After a warm summer, what a treat and a tease! There is nothing like smelling great food cooking all day and knowing that you cannot dig in until dinner time!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

After kicking around several ideas for our celebratory dinner, no doubt informed by the turn of seasons, we arrived somehow at milk-braised pork shoulder as the main course. Then Ann asked if I would make pommes Anna to go with it. Of course. I then thought, seeing how rich those two dishes are, that we should have a simple green salad with an acidic vinaigrette to cut through the fat. And then, no doubt responding directly to the chilly fall weather, Ann asked if I would reprise my mushroom toasts for an appetizer. And voilà! Menu planning done. And darned if we didn't come up with a classic French bistro menu.

Wild Mushroom and Cheese Tartines

Pork Shoulder Braised in Milk

Pommes Anna

Green Salad with Tarragon Vinaigrette

All that was left was to invite our good friends Rob and Dyce to celebrate with us. They arrived for dinner with outstandingly gorgeous flowers, a maple-pumpkin pie, and a bottle of olive oil-washed The Botanist Islay gin for pre-dinner martinis. They are experimenting with fat-washed spirits for their menus at their restaurants in Florida and decided that Ann and I should be guinea pigs. Poor us! I've had bacon-washed Bourbon, but never olive oil-washed gin before. The Botanist, on the spectrum of gins, is on the more delicate and floral side and is perfect for the application of olive oil, which softens the alcoholic feeling of the spirit and contributed a vegetal green olive component. Interesting. Very interesting to my chef palate.

How Stunning are Those Flowers?
Thank You Rob and Dyce!

Pouring Olive Oil-Washed Gin for Martinis

Ann's plan was to sit outside around the fire pit and have appetizers and drinks as the sun was setting and she had been making sure that our courtyard was just so with candles and fall-colored, terracotta-hued throw pillows. Naturally, the weather did not cooperate, with a multi-day rainy streak and cold to cool temperatures leading into the weekend. As needed as our first bit of rain since May was, and as beautiful as the powdered sugar dusting of snow on the Cascades is, I could tell that she was bummed by this turn of weather.

Weather: Rainy, Cold, and Gray
A Marked Contrast to our Sunny Wedding Day

Martinis poured around and toasts offered, we got to finishing up the wild mushroom tartines to accompany our drinks. Earlier in the day, I had made the tartines from a baguette; I would have made them the day before, but our rare patch of high humidity would have been working against having crisp toasted tartines. Early morning, while the tartines were browning in the oven, I prepped and cooked the mushrooms. When we were ready to eat, all we needed to do was to melt some cheese into the mushrooms, top the tartines with the mushrooms and some extra cheese, and put them into the oven to warm.

Tartines Ready for Oven

At the restaurant, we made thousands upon countless thousands of tartines. The process is simple and begins by slicing baguettes on the bias about 7mm wide, call it 3/8 of an inch. These go onto a sheet tray and get drizzled with oil. We used to brush the oil onto them with a paint brush at the restaurant, but really, drizzling works just fine. Then flip them over and drizzle the other side. Place another sheet tray on top such that the bread slices are trapped between the two pans; this will keep them from curling as they cook.

Put them into a moderate oven (call it 350F) and pull them after 20 minutes. Flip the tartines over and put them back into the oven for another 15 minutes. Pull them and flip them again. Cook until they are colored and crisp. Remove from the oven, uncover them, and let them cool to room temperature. If you are not going to serve them right away, store the cold tartines in a sealed bag or container so that they do not go soft in the ambient humidity.

Mushroom Mise
Rehydrated Porcini, Shiitake, Oyster Mushrooms, Shallot, Thyme

Mushrooms Ready to Cook

Mushrooms Ready to Add Cheese

At its essence, this appetizer is simply sautéed mushrooms on toast. But it is a bit more than that and its genesis is in Ann asking me years ago for "something with mushrooms, gooey, and sexy!" Although the mushrooms have varied each time that I have made these delicious bites, rehydrated porcini are the sine qua non of the dish. Their earthy and inimitably delicious flavor, I augment with fresh mushrooms, chanterelles (girolles) in the past, but this time, shiitakes and oysters, about a third each.

I always start by sautéing either leeks or shallots and fresh thyme (I just adore thyme with mushrooms) in butter or olive oil, then add chopped fresh mushrooms. Once these mushrooms have cooked down, I chop the rehydrated porcini and add them to the pan along with the carefully decanted mushroom soaking liquid. Porcini will often have sand or debris on them that will sink to the bottom of the rehydrating bowl and you really don't want that stuff in your dish, so be careful.

Just as we were ready to assemble the tartines, I melted a decent amount of Tallegio cheese into the mushrooms. I wanted, in this instance, to use a French cheese such as Reblochon, but Reblochon was not to be found at our store. This dish, made to pair with an older red Burgundy, really relies on using a stinky cheese. An aged Munster would have been delicious as would have almost any great washed rind cheese, such as Grayson from my talented friends at Meadow Creek Dairy in Galax, Virginia, great purveyors to my restaurant. Tallegio is just perfect as well and that is the cheese I used. Just before the tartines went into the oven, I put another slice of cheese on top to melt over the mushrooms.

[Total aside about Reblochon: Long, long before 9/11, I once went on a wine-buying trip to France and returned on Air France from Charles de Gaulle back to Dulles. At the duty free in Paris, I picked up a Reblochon to take home and boarded the flight. On arriving back stateside, I filled out my declaration card indicating a Reblochon and four cases of wine. After retrieving my wine in the baggage section, I loaded a handtruck with the wine and placed the Reblochon on top. At Customs, they had a conniption about the cheese and confiscated it without even glancing at the four cases of wine on which I owed duty, but which was never assessed. The cost of the Reblochon was far less than the duty (a dollarish per liter) on the wine, a very fair trade!]

Assembling the Appetizers

Mushroom and Tallegio Tartines

When I put the tartines on the top shelf of the oven, I had a chance to glance at the pork shoulder that had been braising in milk most of the day. Milk braising is a very old technique, documented way back into the 1600s, but no doubt predating the invention of books. If you think about it, cooking lamb shanks slathered in yogurt is a classic Persian technique that is still common from the Indian continent to the Middle East.

While pork shoulder braised in milk is known as an Italian dish (miale al latte), I learned the dish in my study of French peasant cooking. Ann owns a gorgeous cookbook called Pork and Sons (originally in French, Cochon et Fils) by Stéphane Reynaud that documents this technique among many others. Some years ago, this book re-reminded me of the milk braising technique which had slipped my mind.

The beauty of this technique is that the lactic acid in the milk helps tenderize the meat and ultimately, the milk mixes with the pork juices and reduces to an incredibly flavorful and gelatinous sauce. It is a technique worthy of remembering; the results are so sublimely good and tasty. It will have you asking how something so terribly simple can be so amazing.

Pork Mise: Milk, Pork, Thyme, Rosemary, Garlic, and Bay Leaves

Still Life with Pork

The Finished Product, 6 Hours in the Braise

I don't know how many times in my life I have made Pommes Anna, that classic French side dish that converts the three simplest ingredients (potatoes, butter, and salt) into something incredibly sublime, something way, way, way more than the sum of its parts. I've been making it so long that I have forgotten how I learned the dish. Although it was probably documented in La Technique by Jacques Pépin, my bible when I was teaching myself classic French technique in my late teens, I no longer remember with any clarity. And it is impossible for me to check, having donated about two thousand cookery volumes to the library at my local culinary school when I retired from the restaurant.

In any case, the dish involves layering potatoes, melted butter, and salt in a heavy pan over a low flame. When the pan is full, you cover it and put it in a hot oven for 20-25 minutes. Then you uncover it and cook it until it is just done all the way through, another 20-25 minutes. After pouring off the melted butter (and saving that for another day) you put a plate on top of the pan and invert it. Presto!

Pommes Anna, Just out of the Oven

Pommes Anna, Unmolded in All its Glory

To finish off our meal, I made a super simple salad. I had been thinking a classic bistro salad such as frisée with lardons, but with all the richness in our dinner, I really wanted something simple, peppery, sharply acidic, and palate cleansing. That ended up being baby arugula (salade de roquette) with a tarragon vinaigrette, a dressing that my dear wife just loved. I hadn't known before this year how much she adores tarragon, an herb that is much underappreciated in America. It is an herb whose licorice undertones I thought might put her off. My bad!

The night before making the salad, I chopped finely a handful of tarragon leaves and placed them in a newly-emptied mustard jar with a quarter cup or so of rice vinegar, a super mild and only lightly flavored vinegar. After sealing the jar and shaking it up to get all the mustard off the walls of the jar, I let it stand on the counter overnight to infuse. My tip to you: keep your emptied mustard jars in the pantry until you are ready to make a dressing using the leftover bits of mustard remaining in the jar. After using the jar to make a dressing, then you can recycle it.

When ready to make the dressing for the salad, I added a tablespoon or two of roasted hazelnut oil and then enough really good Tuscan extra virgin olive oil and salt to taste. Shake it hard to emulsify between tastes and additions. I probably used two parts oil to one part vinegar. Less to my taste would be a milder dressing closer to the classical vinaigrette ratio of three parts oil to one part vinegar.

I don't have a set recipe for vinaigrettes at home: they depend on my tastebuds and each dressing has to be adjusted just so. If I want a more acidic dressing (for counteracting a fatty pork shoulder, for example), I would use a lower oil to vinegar ratio. Otherwise, more oil. Also, the quality of the acidity matters too. Some vinegars are really acidic and require more oil (or even water) to tame them. Some vinegars are very mild and want less oil so that they are not overwhelmed. My rule of thumb: start with two parts oil to one part vinegar and add oil bit by bit until you are happy with it.

My Stealth Vinaigrette Maker: Newly-Emptied Mustard Jar

And that's pretty much the saga of our anniversary dinner. The food was so good, even if I say so myself. That pork, I cut it with my fork, it was so freaking tender. From the umami-laden appetizer to the crisp acidity of the salad, it was just a memorable meal. And the maple-pumpkin pie that the guys brought over was the perfect little bite to finish it off with, not too sweet and not reeking of pumpkin pie spice. The pie was well done.

After Rob and Dyce departed, I realized that there's only one real downside to celebrating at home and that is the somewhat large pile of dishes that has to be attended to after your guests have left. It's a small price to pay, but cleaning the cocotte below was a pain in the butt. I'd do it all over again for another bite of that damned pork, though!

Dirty Dishes: Fun Times!

Our anniversary celebration was a great one and I am looking forward to spending the time until the next one with my very best friend, the woman that I adore and who loves me to death. Ann, I love you!

A Crockpot Kind of Day

It's something that I look forward to each summer, but it always kind of takes me by surprise, that first cold snap of fall that reminds me that the snow is just weeks away. This year, it really wasn't much of a surprise in that the weather forecast for around the first official day of fall has been for lows just above freezing and highs struggling to the upper 50s.

Pork and Beans: White Beans with Pork Necks and Chorizo

The real surprise came around 3am when I awoke to very cold temperatures in our bedroom. Here in the high desert, it is exceedingly common for everyone to open their windows at night even in the summer, forest fires willing, to let in the cold night air. By the time I awoke around 5:30am, it was 35 degrees outside and the cold air was streaming in through the open windows.

In anticipation of colder weather, I always lean hard into comfort food, slow-cooked food, and eagerly await that first batch of whatever from the crockpot. At the grocery store earlier in the week, aware of the forecasted colder weather to come, I picked up a couple pounds of pork neck bones as the basis for whatever I would put in the crockpot to celebrate the coming of fall, probably my favorite season of the year.

And last night, I put a couple pounds of white beans in the ceramic crockpot liner to soak overnight, rinsing them twice before going to bed and once again when I awoke. On willing myself to brave the cooler temperatures outside the delightfully warm bedcovers, I went downstairs to start the beans cooking, make a pot of coffee, and start the pork neck bones browning.

While Ann and I started in on our coffee and the first of our New York Times crossword puzzles for the morning, the pork neck bones browned over low heat. I would get up from time to time during the puzzles to turn them and then when they were browned, to add them to the pot of beans slowly heating on the counter.

Ann left to go to her fitness class and I left to go on my morning walk down the river and back. It was a great morning to walk, starting at 45 degrees and mostly sunny. It was one of those days when I walked out of the shade and into a patch of sun and loved the momentary heat on my bare legs, so in contrast to recent weeks when I would scurry quickly from patch to patch of shade, avoiding the sun as much as possible.

My walk really hammered home that fall is upon us, even as my very cold hands on this keyboard do right now. The deciduous scrub along the river has already dropped half its leaves, with the remaining changing color, highlighting the bright red, orange, and white berries still on the branches. I decided to count the species of wildflowers still in view and until the last moment, I thought that one hand would suffice for the tally. In the end, I spied a scant few blossoms of only seven species (storksbill, alfalfa, rabbitbrush, fireweed, goldenrod, white sweet-clover, and yarrow), a sure sign that the snow will fly on the mountains soon, possibly tomorrow night.

After my brisk walk without breaking a sweat–finally!–I was looking forward to getting home and smelling that first aroma of the beans and pork cooking as I walked in the door. Our house is well-insulated and as a result, the indoor temperature never reached 60 degrees, making me crave a warm blanket, a crackling fire, and a cup of tea, thoughts unthinkable just days ago.

The chilly temps also made me crave that warm bowl of beans for dinner and I must admit that it was something of a torment to smell them cooking all afternoon, especially after I added the aromatics to them. After my walk, I cooked up a couple onions, a bunch of garlic, and half a stick of hard Spanish chorizo with a teaspoon of La Vera pimentón and a teaspoon of dried thyme. This certainly perfumed the air in the house and the crockpot did a great job of continuing to make the house smell wonderful after I put this sofrito into the beans.

White beans flavored with a bit of pork might seem very simple, very mundane, and very peasanty, but they made a fantastic dinner that comfortingly warmed our bellies on a chilly day. I'm so happy fall is here, cold hands be damned!

Great Northern Beans Soaking Overnight

Slowly Browning Pork Neck Bones

Sofrito in Same Pan: Onions, Chorizo, and Garlice

Sofrito Cooking, Scraping up All the Brown Bits from the Pork

Deglazing with Some Bean Cooking Liquid

Deliciousness after Seven Hours on Low in the Crockpot

Two Nights in Boise

Our friends Tim and Susan, fellow craft beer travelers, up and left us the first of July, moving to Boise and depriving us from our weekly fixes with their dog Cady. They left a good bit of their wine at our house with our promise that we would drive it over and have them introduce us to their new town. Prior to this trip, Boise was for us just a pit-stop on I-84 while heading elsewhere. Trying to wedge the trip in between doctor visits and other things that would keep us in Bend, we found a 3-day window starting Monday September 11, the 22nd anniversary of that date that neither Ann nor I will forget, both of us working close to the Pentagon.

Boiseans Love Their Town

With our sights set on meeting Tim and Susan at Mother Earth Brewing for a mid-afternoon welcome-to-Boise beer, we starting pushing east-southeast through the desert for the 345-mile, 6-hour drive that would see us cross over into Mountain Time. I never really thought about Boise being south of Bend until I looked at it on the map. Well, I'll be!

In this early fall season in the bright morning sun, we saw a veritable parade of rabbitbrush gleaming yellow on the roadsides leaving Bend where it and Antelope Bitterbrush dominate the landscape for nearly an hour of road time. Things start to change near the agricultural hamlet of Hampton, where the sagebrush really starts growing in earnest. Here, near the edge of a grass farm glowing unnaturally green in the desert because of irrigation, stood a lone pronghorn.

This was unusual in two respects. First, when do you ever see a lone pronger? They're always in small to huge herds. Second, I never thought about pronghorns residing in my own county. They have an affinity for sagebrush and in our county, the sagebrush doesn't really get started along US-20 until south and east of Hampton some 65 miles east of Bend. Interestingly enough, this would be the only pronghorn we would see on this trip and I think it may have been the first I have seen in Oregon. I'm kind of foggy on this; I have seen thousands upon thousands of them all over the west.

As we moved more into the sagebrush steppe towards Burns, the western junipers that are quite thick near Bend ceased to really have a large presence. But what was noticeable, even at 80mph, was a yellowish cast to the sagebrush which are just starting to bloom. They are not very handsome blooms as are those of the rabbitbrush nor are they terribly visible because they are so tiny.

Much more visible, however, are the sunflowers which are in full bloom now. From east of Burns just before we headed up into the Stinkingwater Mountains, we would see uncountable millions of sunflowers all the way to Boise. They were especially noticeable and beautiful on mile after mile of the benches and hillsides on either side of the Malheur River, their silver dollar- to baseball-sized blooms livening up our drive.

'Tis the Season for Sunflowers, Helianthus annuus, Ann's Favorite Flowers

Roadside Sunflowers at 70mph Along the Malheur River

About 25 road miles past Stinkingwater Pass, just shy of Juntura, the North Fork Malheur River appears on the north side of Route 20. On the eastern outskirts of Juntura, the North Fork merges into the main body of the Malheur, coming up from the south. Then Highway 20 crisscrosses the river for the next hour and a half into Vale and then on to Ontario where it empties into the Snake and ultimately the Columbia. The section of highway between Juntura and Harper is desolate, without cell phone signal, and austerely beautiful, the river and highway hemmed in on both sides by barren hillsides with really picturesque and often sheer escarpments. I snapped the following cell phone pics as Ann drove.

Entire Hillsides of Sunflowers

Sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata, and Sunflowers in the River Bottom

Continuing on east after the winding and totally gorgeous valley along the Malheur River, the land flattens out and is given over to agriculture. From Vale to Ontario in the Treasure Valley we encountered field after field of onions, sugar beets, corn, and grass. The area around Ontario is known for both potatoes and onions; Ontario is the location of the big Ore-Ida potato processing plant. But that said, it is currently onion season and we saw fields in all states from still green, to yellow wilted foliage, to stubbled with freshly mown onions waiting to be dug, to windrows of dug onions drying in the sun, to bare fields freshly harvested.

Growing up and beyond agriculture, Ontario, situated on the Snake River with Idaho on the far bank, is in recent years a very busy town. Known as the home of Tater Tots since the 1950s, it is currently a marijuana boom town. Just a short drive from the major Idaho population center surrounding Boise, Ontario is where Idahoans come to purchase their weed, it being banned in their bright red state. We Oregonians thank them for the tax revenue!

Passing through Ontario, we merged sharply onto I-84 at an entrance ramp littered with escaped onions and ripped east at 85mph towards Boise. Around 2pm, we arrived at the Mother Earth tap house on 3rd St., quiet on a Monday afternoon. Tim, Susan, and Cady were already there because we texted them when we were 20 minutes from the pub. Cady loves people and was terribly excited to see us once again. Tim and Susan wanted to show us Mother Earth Brewing, their second favorite establishment in Boise, in part likely to demonstrate to us that they were not entirely crazy in moving away from the plethora of great beers in Bend. I joke, but a cold beer was surely welcome after the long drive to Idaho.

Cady was Happy to See Friends

Two beers on empty stomachs reminded us that we had not yet eaten and now at 4pm Mountain Time, we should grab a bite. After a quick trip back to Susan and Tim's house where we pulled our car containing their cases of wine into the shade of their garage, Tim, Ann, and I set out just across the Boise River to the Boise Fry Company for a quick snack of fries to stave off hunger until dinner.

To order fries here, we first had to select the type of potato (russet, gold, purple, red, sweet, and yam). That's a pretty impressive list of local potatoes from which to choose, the potatoes coming from a farm on the other side of nearby Mountain Home. On our drive across Idaho from Montana to Oregon when we were moving to the West Coast, Ann and I got to see first hand how much of southern Idaho is dedicated to potato production. With so much of the economy based on potatoes, the fries in Idaho should be damned good, don't you think? Don't you also think that there is no better potato in the world for fries than an Idaho russet?

The fries were delicious, especially since Ann ordered our russets cooked in duck fat and tossed with a little truffle oil. The potatoes, already blanched and sitting on trays in a bun pan rack, are fried to order and come to the table hot and unsalted. You take them to a condiment bar and toss them with a salt of your choosing (I chose rosemary) and select from a large variety of dipping sauces for them. I got roasted jalapeño ranch for mine, which seemed to me much more like a spicy green aïoli than ranch dressing and that's a great thing.

Apparently on Monday afternoons, there is some kind of BOGO deal going on and the cashier asked me if I wanted my second beer right away or if I wanted to come back for it. Damn, that's illegal in every other state I have ever visited, but OK! Still, there was no way that I was going to have a fourth beer, so as we were leaving I told the crew to have it for their shift beer. They seemed to be very surprised and happy.

Fried Russets, foreground, and Fried Yams

Salt and Condiment Bar

After snacking our fries–what a great breakfast!–we drove back across to the north side of the river and back in the direction of downtown to Tim and Susan's house. The evening was a casual affair involving a good bit of wine and Tim's delicious dinner of a chicken and potato stew and a golden beet salad, both delicious. It was an early night for all of us and I slept like a champ, something of a miracle in my older age.

Chicken and Potato Stew, Golden Beet Salad

Tuesday morning, although I heard Cady get up and walk around at 5:15, I was able to go back to sleep until 6:45, no doubt thanks to the very different light cues in Boise. Because of the hour time change and the house being situated west of a mesa, the light at 6:45 seems similar to 5:15 in Bend. I stumbled out to the kitchen for a most welcome cup of coffee to find out that Tim was out on his morning run, but would be back shortly and wanted to climb to the top of Table Rock, the mesa behind the house.

Tim, Climbing to Top of Table Rock

Walking out the back door, the vistas of Boise from Table Rock are two miles up the hill, a pretty easy climb of 450 feet of elevation gain per mile, the bottom and top portions much steeper than the middle. We were so fortunate that it was overcast and that the sun was behind the hill for the majority of the walk; it is nothing if not exposed and would have been brutal in the bright sunlight.

I was really happy to get outside and stretch my legs, if for no other reason than I got almost no exercise the day before. Besides getting great views of Boise, I also saw a new-to-me species of bird (Say's Phoebe) and three or four species of plants that I had not encountered before. Lots of photos in a subsequent post.

Back at the house, Tim and I set out for the Albertson's next to Boise State to grab a couple beautiful dry-aged steaks for dinner that evening. Although I knew that WinCo is headquartered in Boise, I did not realize that Albertson's was as well. This beautiful Albertson's with an in-store ageing cooler for steaks sits right by Boise State's Albertson's Field, as any college football fan can tell you, home of that crazy-looking bright blue artificial Smurf Turf. This flagship store is a far, far cry from the super mundane one that we have in Bend. Although I knew of a Basque presence in Idaho, I did not realize that Albertson's would have a Basque section in it: pretty cool!

Tim had planned a pub crawl along the Greenbelt, a linear park along both sides of the Boise River, for our Tuesday amusement and fun. He had mapped out a nice route including four pubs based on their opening hours. Most don't serve food, so we wanted to get some take-out food to take to our first location for lunch. We struck out on the first two places (not open on Tuesday) but Tim's third choice was gold. 

Food Land Market, north of the expressway in a section of town called Garden City, bills itself as a Mediterranean market and café, but it feels more Middle Eastern. Run by a charming Iraqi woman, it is a place that I could explore a lot as a source of interesting ingredients. I am jealous of Boiseans as we have nothing similar in Bend, a town bereft of any international influence.

We called in our order, shawarma, falafel, and baba ghanoush before we left the house for the 10-minute drive to Garden City. The shawarma in particular we would find utterly delicious, very tender braised lamb and pickles wrapped in a pita (that more closely resembled a flour tortilla) that was browned on a flattop.

Food Land Market

With our lunch in tow, we drove just a handful of blocks through Garden City to Western Collective, a brewery that Tim wanted us to sample for our first beer of the day. It's a funky pseudo-Western themed brewpub in a pretty industrial/commercial part of town, just a few blocks south of the river. We got beers at the bar and then walked out back to a picnic table to enjoy our lunch to the quasi-musical noises of the canning line.

How Many Brewpubs Have a Cat in Residence?

Delicious Arab Shawarma in a Wrap, Baba Ghanoush

Lunch and a beer in our stomachs, we headed back upriver into Boise where Susan would drop us at White Dog Brewing, the starting point for our walk back downstream to Garden City. Although it seemed a decent enough place as we walked in, the crappy beer was under-exceeded only by the shitty 80's hair metal on the speakers.

Unthinkingly, I ordered a West Coast IPA without asking for a taste and when I tasted it, I knew I could not and would not drink it. It tasted skunked (how is that possible in a keg system?). It may be that the draft lines are filthy. I don't know. With one beer down and two more breweries coming up, I left it sitting. If I were not going elsewhere, I would have asked for something different. Our bartender was oblivious.

I did experience something new there, however. I had never before seen a bar with a frost rail, a frosted highly refrigerated strip down the middle of the bar for the purpose of keeping your beer glass cold. We all wondered why then they would serve Tim's beer in a footed glass. Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it? I imagine the whole concept is more gimmicky than effective.

Stunning Bolivian Begonia Outside White Dog Brewing

Unappealing and Undrunk West Coast IPA on Frost Rail

From White Dog Brewing, with the gorgeous Idaho State Capitol dome to our backs, we walked down Capitol Street towards the river and the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, a beautiful and contemplative park along the river. It strikes me as terribly ironic that Boise has opened its arms wide to refugees and immigrants from all over the world while also being the capital of one of the most red of all the right-wing states which largely despise immigrants.

Boise River Greenbelt at the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial

We did not linger long at the memorial for the sun was getting high in the sky and very warm. We departed quickly for the shady Greenbelt beside the river. Along the river, a wide variety of trees provided shade for us, among them black walnut, black locust, black cottonwood, various willows, and surprisingly, Doug Fir. This is a crazy assortment of trees. Black walnut and black locust are eastern species and Doug Firs are pretty rare this far south in Idaho. No wonder they call it Boise, from the French boisé, wooded in English.

Payette Brewing

Our next stop was Payette Brewing where I had a nice IPA in the cool of the tasting room decorated with Octoberfest flags in preparation for their upcoming fest. Susan and Cady joined us after having skipped White Dog. From here, Tim, Cady, and I continued walking in the at times blazing sun, crossing the river, and heading up to about 33rd Street to Barbarian Brewing.

The girls, who drove, Ann becoming overheated in the sun, stopped at a nearby wine bar before joining us at Barbarian, the best of the day's brewpubs. I felt obligated to try a sour at a place that specializes in them, so I went with a blackberry sour which, like many sours, was a bit intense for me, so I had our bartender add a quarter IPA to it. It was delicious, but I could only drink one.

Tim and Cady Crossing the Boise

See Rule Number One

75% Blackberry Sour, 25% IPA

One thing I noticed on our tour of the Greenbelt is that there were scads of flies everywhere, something we just don't experience in Bend. According to Tim, it is known to locals that we are in the middle of fly season in Boise. We have bad mosquitos during the hatch in the spring, but flies don't register in Bend. For the Boiseans' sake, I hope they have an early frost.

Our pub crawl complete, we headed back to Tim and Susan's house to relax before dinner, those steaks that Tim and I fetched earlier in the morning. The steaks were in celebration of their closing the sale of their Bend house, set for the following morning after a lengthy stint on the market. Real estate buyers are scarcer and pickier than they were a year ago.

Ann and I do not eat steak very much so this was a great treat for us. I know Ann would like a little more steak in our diet, but if we're going to eat steak, it's going to be very good steak and we just don't have any place to find that quality steak in Bend. If we had that Boise Albertson's with the dry ageing cabinet in Bend, we'd splurge more often without a doubt.

To accompany the delicious steaks that we roasted on his Traeger, Tim generously opened a mini-vertical of Robert Craig Mt. Veeder Cab, 2006, 2007, and 2008. I'm so used to drinking Oregon Pinot Noir which demonstrates significant vintage variation that I have forgotten how consistent Napa vintages are. All three wines were extremely similar. I believe I speak for the group when I say that the 2007 was our favorite. After that, the 2008 struck me as just a bit finer than the 2006. I could only drink a little of each on account of our afternoon pub crawl.

2006, 2007, and 2008 Robert Craig Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon

Dry Aged Rib Steaks

Delicious and Tender, Steak is a Rare Treat

After that delicious dinner, it was well after dark and we were well on our way to bed, anticipating leaving Boise just after lunch so as to arrive home in Bend before dark. I am no longer comfortable driving long distances after dark; it becomes very hard to see anything at all and my depth perception is not great.

Wednesday morning, along with our coffee, we watched some of La Vuelta a España bicycle race that the Durango Kid, American Sepp Kuss, was leading and would ultimately win, giving his Jumbo-Visma team a sweep in the 2023 Grand Tours, a big thank-you from his teammates for his hard work in helping them win the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France.

Late morning, after saying our reluctant goodbyes to a confused Cady, who reminds us how much we miss our dogs, we headed out for an early lunch. On Tuesday, Tim had wanted to take us to Ansots, the James Beard-nominated chorizo outpost in downtown, but it was closed, so we ended up at the Iraqi-run Food Land Market instead. Today, Ansots was open and our mission was to enjoy some of Dan Ansotegui's delicious chorizos for lunch before heading back to Oregon.

Accordingly, we headed downtown to the Basque Block, a single block in Old Boise celebrating the more than 16,000 residents of that heritage, possibly the largest concentration of Basques outside of Spain. Coincidentally and knowing that I had planned to make a paella for our anniversary at the end of September, I thought I would take advantage of Ansots to score a couple of sausages for that event. Alas, they would not sell them to me and pointed me in the direction of their Basque Market around the corner, already on my radar as my Plan B.

The menu at Ansots offers a few tapas/pintxos and several bocadillos. Ann ordered presa (sliced pork shoulder steak) and mixed croquetas (jamón, bacalao, and veggie) for her lunch, while the rest of us ordered sandwiches. On his bocadillo, Tim got a tortilla (chorizo and Idiazabal cheese omelet), Susan pork belly and fried egg, and I two chistorras (spicy sausage). Ann and I decided to get two sandwiches to go for our dinner, so we ordered the Latx (two different thinly-sliced chorizos and Manchego cheese) and the Txomin (jamón serrano and Idiazabal).

We really enjoyed the opportunity to sample dishes that we cannot get at home. Though I have made and eaten many a chorizo during my life, this was my first time ever eating chistorra (txistorra). We all thought that the bread from nearby Acme Bakeshop in Garden City was delicious and well-toasted. It's hard to make a great sandwich with subpar bread. Each of our plates was garnished with delicious seared green peppers in the style of padrones, but they are of a shape that I do not recognize. Too bad we were there for lunch before driving: a bottle or two of Txakoli would have really hit the spot!

Chorizos on Display at Ansots

Chistorra Bocadillo, Bonus Points for the Seared Peppers as Garnish

Croquetas Mixtas

With our to-go sandwiches from Ansots in hand, we walked past the Basque Center and Museum to the Basque Market in search of chorizos. As we neared the store, I noticed a lot of people occupying the shaded tables out front on the sidewalk. And as we got closer, my nose went on red alert as I saw a guy finishing up a largish paella in a four-handled enameled paellera.

Apparently, the Basque Market prepares a paella on the patio at noon each Wednesday and Friday and it was our good fortune to drop by on a Wednesday, right after noon. I can just hear the Valencians (reputedly the devisors of paella, but come on, people have been eating rice dishes long before Valencia was a thing) muttering about the Basques and cultural appropriation. But really, paella is the de facto national dish of all Spain and the Basques are as welcome to make it as I am, a WASP through and through.

Twice-Weekly Paella at the Basque Market

No stranger to making paellas, I chatted with the chef for a few moments and inquired how much rice it took for this paellera (a good measure of size). Mine takes a kilo and a half of rice; he said he used three kilos. We also discussed paella pans briefly, chef to chef. I understand why people use enameled paelleras (much easier to maintain), but I like my raw steel Garcima Pata Negra pan instead. I believe that using a raw steel pan, you can get a better socarrat, the crunchy bottom crust that is the ultimate goal in making a paella. And yes, you do have to clean it carefully and oil it as you have to do with any steel or cast iron pan. Or non-stainless steel knife. Like any tools, you have to take care of them.

Inside the crowded store, I got a couple of hard Ibérico chorizos to take home for my own paella. It was hard to move around in the cramped confines because of all the people jammed around a long table, awaiting their serving of paella. After waiting on line to pay for my chorizos, it was a good bit of a slog to get through the crowd of people huddled around the paellera, plates in hand and figuratively drooling in anticipation of lunch.

Sadly at this point, it was time for us to get on the road and head back home and so we took leave of Tim and Susan. While they headed home, we headed the opposite direction taking the 184 expressway in the direction of I-84 westbound towards Ontario. We wanted to take advantage of the lower gas prices in Idaho to refill our tank, so we stopped in Caldwell at a truck stop with $3.99 gas. Compare that to $4.49 across the Snake River in Ontario. That's $10 cheaper for our 20-gallon tank.

The trip back, the reverse of the way we came, was pretty boring, though incredibly beautiful, and seemingly lasted forever. It was the trip that would never end. Psychologically, you think you are getting close to home when you re-enter your own county, don't you? I know I do. But on the Central Oregon Highway (US 20), when we hit the southern border of the county before the hamlet of Hampton, it's still another 65 miles of empty desert to get to the eastern edge of town and another 15 minutes to get home from there.

It's hard for people on the East Coast to picture how vast the West is. Our county, Deschutes, is one of the medium-sized counties in Oregon and at over 3000 square miles, could engulf over 2-1/2 Rhode Islands, a pittance compared to the abutting Harney County at over 10,000 square miles which is larger than six of our states by itself and is the 10th largest county in the lower 48. Alaska and its boroughs are a whole other deal!

Tim and Susan, thank you for your hospitality and congratulations on closing the sale of your house in Bend. Best wishes in Boise and we'll see you soon enough.