Fourth of July 2026

And so, here we are, at the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

When I was a teenager, I found the 200th to be a wonderful celebration. I remember thinking how cool the celebration would be in another fifty years, in 2026 when we celebrated 250 years as a country. Now that we have arrived at that milestone, I find myself embarrassed by the leadership of this country and unwilling to take part in ceremonies coopted by the President and his cronies. I fear for this country at 300, something I will never see. Our kids will have to deal with that situation.

Ann's Flag Cake

Rob and Dyce invited us over for a cookout, and wonderfully, it did not involve me cooking anything! Ann baked the flag cake above. I managed to channel our many at-altitude baking failures appropriately into modifying Ann's recipe. At long last, a successful cake!

Dyce Sprinkling Pimentón on His Deviled Eggs

Soft Cheese with Pistachios

Beautiful Evening to Sit on the Porch

Burgermeister Rob

Barbara's Potato Salad

Rob's Corn (Elote) Salad

Front Row Seats to a Wildfire Start

Facing north towards Redmond, we saw just a few fireworks far away. The big show on Pilot Butte was behind the hill behind us. No matter. I purposefully disconnected myself from the America 250 celebrations and was not too much in the mood for fireworks this year. The sunset provided plenty of fireworks on its own.

July 4 Celebration

Each year, we celebrate the Fourth of July and the country where we live. I am not a political person, but this year, I am decidedly not feeling at all patriotic, nor am proud of certain things that are happening in our country. Still, we persevered with our celebration in the hopes that this country will right itself. Right is a poor choice of verbs in this instance. Perhaps I should have chosen the verb center.

We invited Rob, Dyce, Dyce's parents who are in town from Italy, and new friend Brad to throw down with us.

Lyn, Brad, Neal, Dyce, Ann, and Rob

The menu ended up as a pseudo-Greek affair. I like burgers for the 4th, but had a hankering for my lamb burgers which blow beef burgers out of the water. From there, it was not a stretch to want to pair the burgers with tzatziki and horiatiki. But then, Ann wanted orzo too, so I combined the orzo and horiatiki to create a cold pasta salad. Then I wanted an appetizer I could make in advance, so after a bit of head scratching, decided on tiropitakia, cheese-filled phyllo pastries. Ann volunteered to make her delicious berry and brioche summer pudding and asked me to make a sorbet. We settled on lemon-thyme and the menu was complete. The recipe for the sorbet is in a separate post.

Some wine was drunk; some food was eaten; some fun was had!

Lamb Burger with Feta and Pine Nuts

I love my lamb burgers and this year, for a change, I recorded a rough recipe because I have had requests for it in the past.

Lamb Burger Recipe

This recipe scales well so I have expressed it in terms of seasonings for a single pound of lamb. In reality, I made a 4-pound batch and I eyeballed everything. It is always a good idea when mixing a batch of forcemeat like this, to cook a tiny bit and adjust the seasonings to your liking. Also, this mix gains flavor in the refrigerator so plan on mixing everything a day or even two in advance. I scaled out six-ounce burgers, my preferred size.

Per pound of ground lamb:

1/4 c dry white wine (substitute red wine or water or stock)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon dried Greek oregano

1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 teaspoon Pimentón de la Vera agridulce (smoked paprika)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground pepper

3 cloves garlic, minced (I used way more than this!)

small handful of toasted pine nuts

2 ounces sheep’s milk feta, crumbled

optional, if you have spice grinder:

pinch dried rosemary, finely ground

pinch dried thyme, finely ground 

Procedure:

Mix liquids and solids well to distribute salt and spices.

Add lamb and gently mix. Using hands is best.

Refrigerate overnight or two nights.

Patty into burgers or shape into kefta (oval meatballs)

Cook to desired temperature. I like medium rare.

Tiropitakia and Tzatziki

Tiropitakia Ready for Oven

Our appetizer was the tiropitakia (little cheese pies) that you see in photos above. I just went with my gut which said to mix chopped kalamata olives, chopped marinated sun-dried tomatoes, oregano, lemon zest, and grated pecorino cheese with a tub of ricotta cheese. For savory pastries like this, I brush the phyllo layers with olive oil (and for sweet pastries, I use butter). I brushed the tops of the little triangles with olive oil and sprinkled them with oregano and coarse salt before baking until browned in a moderate oven. A recipe for tzatiki is in this post.

Orzo Salad

The pasta salad was simple. I mixed a bunch of olive oil, lemon juice, kalamata brine, and oregano (my usual horiatiki dressing) in a large bowl. Then I cut the horiatiki vegetables and cheese smaller than usual, because otherwise, they would dwarf the small orzo pasta. The usual suspects are: tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and feta. I omitted peppers because I didn't feel like I wanted them. So there.

I put all the salad ingredients into the dressing for about an hour to marinate. The red onions, I sliced very thin and soaked in several changes of cold water to mellow them out. In the morning, I par-cooked the orzo a couple minutes shy of being done, knowing that it would finish softening in the refrigerator. This is a useful technique for all pasta salads. After cooling the pasta under running water, it went into the vegetables and I tasted for salt. Salt this salad carefully because the kalamata brine, olives, and feta are already salty.

Into the fridge to mellow for a few hours the salad went. Just before serving the appetizers, I put the salad in a serving bowl and garnished with the onions. Just before serving dinner, I mixed everything well to distribute the onions and redistribute the dressing.

Ann's Beautiful Summer Berry and Brioche Pudding

Lemon-Thyme Sorbet with Summer Berry Pudding

Fourth of July 2024

Our annual Fourth of July to-do was really just an excuse this year to fire up the pizza oven and continue to perfect my recipe and techniques. I think we're getting close. Ann had invited Rob and Dyce to come over for pizza and as luck would have it, Dyce's parents are back stateside from their home in Tuscany. We are going to visit with them in September and haven't seen them since they came to a Christmas dinner at our house couple years back, a dinner of gnocchi and pork ragù.

Pesto Pizza Topped with Arugula and Mortadella

Despite the high temperature for the day in the low 90s, it was pleasant enough for us to sit out in the courtyard of our house, situated on the cooler east side. I didn't think it was going to happen, but we were cool enough until I fired up the pizza oven, that fire-breathing dragon pointed right in my direction.

Rob, Dyce, and Queen Ann

Neil and Lynne

The Queen and Her Rosé

Patty Green Helen Duschee Tempranillo Rosé
Our Go-To Patio Wine for 2024

To go with our rosé, red wine never being a thought this time of year, I put together a small antipasto board of tomatoes, pesto-marinated bocconcini, giardiniera, olives, Calabrese salame, finocchiona, rosemary crackers, and two spectacular washed rind cheeses, one from Vermont, the other from Switzerland. From Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont, we got a whole Willoughby, a small washed rind cow's milk cheese that has a soft buttery paste. From Switzerland, we got a piece of Aarewasser (literally Aare water) raw milk washed rind cheese that was phenomenal.

Antipasto Board

For pizzas, I set up to do a couple of different base pies and then provided extra toppings for people to add to their slices after the pies came out of the oven. For the pie bases, I had some fresh mozzarella, 'nduja, olive oil, pesto, and a can of San Marzano tomatoes. For additional toppings, we had arugula which Ann and I dearly love on pizza, fresh basil, extra pepperoncini, a block of pecorino romano, several slices of really fine mortadella, and a batch of honey with crushed Calabrian chili for those of us who like a bit of spice with our pizza.

My favorite pie was probably 'nduja and mozzarella topped with arugula and drizzled with Calabrian chili-honey.

Toppings: Arugula, Basil, Pepperoncini, Pecorino,
Mortadella, and Calabrian Chili Honey

First Pie: Margherita, the Classic
Hand-Crushed San Marzanos and Fresh Mozz
Torn Basil and a Drizzle of Olive Oil After Cooking

Pesto with Black Olives and Pepperoncini

After pizzas, we finished with an espresso sorbet that I made from espresso, sugar, salt, and a touch of vodka to help minimize crystallization. It was far too dark when I served it to take photos.

As I mentioned earlier, I think we are narrowing in on the ideal pizza recipe. This batch of dough, I made with King Arthur all-purpose flour, the retail equivalent of the Sir Gallahad flour we used to use at the restaurant, instead of Caputo 00. I like the flavor of this dough better than the more traditional Neapolitan dough made with the stronger Caputo 00. King Arthur AP has 11.7% protein versus 13.5% in Caputo's 00. Given that at retail here in the middle of nowhere Oregon I can only find King Arthur, I'm going to stick with it.

This batch was 65% hydration, 3% salt, and 2% yeast. Pizza recipes, like many doughs, are expressed as baker's formulas. So when I say 65% hydration, the water would weigh 65% of the amount that the flour weighs. So if I were starting with 1000 grams of flour, I would add 650 grams of water (and 30 grams of salt and 20 grams of yeast).

Given that I wanted to make a batch of eight 250-gram dough balls (a total of two  kilograms), using my baker's formula, simple algebra told me how much flour, water, salt, and yeast would yield two kilos of dough. And by the way, bakers and pastry chefs use metric amounts almost exclusively and they weigh everything. The math is way simpler when compared to using arbitrary English amounts and there is no mixing of volumetric amounts such as cups of flour and weights such as a half an ounce of salt.

Over the last series of experiments, we determined that we like 65% hydration versus the easier-to-handle 60%. 65% water to 100% flour is about as wet a dough as I feel comfortable handling right now, but I also think that the results are fantastic, so I am not sure that I will try to push the hydration further.

Another factor is the length of proofing, that is, the time that the yeast takes to cause the dough to rise. To a point, the longer the yeast works, the more flavor it gives the dough. We know empirically from previous tests that we like a dough that has taken 24-48 hours to sit and come together. I started this dough at 3pm on July 3, let it have its first rise on the counter over about three hours, and then balled it and refrigerated it overnight. I removed it from the refrigerator at 3pm the next day, and let it rise unrefrigerated until I fired the first pie at about 7:30pm.

Also critical is managing the heat of the pizza oven. Heretofore, I had cooked pies on max blast and at 7/8 max blast. Neither was really optimal, cooking the top way faster than the bottom and leaving the interior of the crust just slightly undercooked. I'm picking nits here, trying to make professional quality pizzas, not merely good enough pizzas.

This time, I tried a different technique. While I heated the stone in the oven on max blast, when I went to fire a pie, I turned the flame all the way down. This increased the cook time by at least half, from 60 seconds to about 90 seconds. This yielded a much more cooked bottom crust and a fully cooked interior.

I thought the next to last pie had too cooked a bottom (I was the only one who thought this) so the final pie, I turned the flame back to a quarter rather than all the way down. Consensus was that this pie was undercooked. So all the way down in the future it is.

July 4: Whitewater and Hot Dogs

After a couple of days full of late afternoon thunderstorms, something we had not witnessed in the four years we lived in the Willamette Valley and also something that, perversely, we missed from Virginia, we got a fully sunny forecast for the early part of July 4th. We needed to get out of the house after being cooped up, but last time we were out, Ann messed up her feet pretty badly. I would get in pretty serious trouble if I said "I told you so!" about wearing new shoes on a long walk, so I won't say "I told you so!"

Long and short, we wanted to get out for a little exercise, but walking very far on Ann's bum feet was not in the cards, nor was doing anything with any kind of elevation gain. We decided to head to the Benham Falls East side trail head and make the brief flat walk along the Deschutes River to the falls and back, before heading back home to prepare a July 4th hot dog dinner.

The road to the trailhead/boat launch leaves US 97 at the Lava Lands Visitors Center where I was surprised to see a Forest Service employee manning the entrance gate on a federal holiday. For the four miles from the entrance to the parking area, we played Frogger with the local rodents. Every few hundred yards, another little critter tried to play tag with our tires: Golden-mantled Ground Squirrels, tiny Yellow-pine Chipmunks, and a lone Douglas' Squirrel schlepping a Ponderosa Pine cone across the road.

We arrived early in the morning when there was plenty of parking in the small lot and headed downriver for the short walk to the falls, which we visited about three weeks ago, but from the west side of the river, walking upriver from Dillon Falls. From the parking lot to the falls, we had large amounts of the walk to ourselves, but by the time we reached the falls, people were swarming in from the west side. The walk back was a circus of people, screaming kids, bikes, and general mayhem stemming from the holiday. We were glad to leave the masses behind and head home. As we were leaving, overflow cars from the parking lot lined the entrance road for a good quarter mile.

Yellow Salsify, Tragopogon dubius

Woods Full of Blooming Western Columbine, Aquilegia formosa

American Vetch, Vicia americana

Oxeye Daisy, Leucanthemum vulgare

Footbridge Crossing from East to West Side

Forget-Me-Nots (Myosotis sp.) Growing on Beaver Dam

Red-Wing Blackbird Protecting His Turf

Raft of Invasive Yellow Iris, Iris pseudacorus
and Blooming Red Osier Dogwood, Cornus sericea

Song Sparrow Serenading Us

More Yellow Iris in Front of
Highly Poisonous Water Hemlock, Cicuta maculata

Sharp-leaved Monkeyflower, Erythranthe decora

River Side Rock Formation

Cliffside Penstemons

Mass of Penstemons

Penstemon Blossom Detail

Riverside Yellow-Pine Chipmunk

Woods' Rose, Rosa woodsii

A St. John's Wort, Hypericum sp.

Diamond Clarkia, Clarkia rhomboidea

One of a Pair of Highly Vocal Ospreys

Sticky Cinquefoil, Drymocallis glandulosa

Mulie Doe on Trail

Beautiful Lupine, Lupinus sp.

Turbulent Water at Head of Benham Falls

Looking Downriver from Top of Benham Falls

Rock Island in Falls

Woodland Pinedrops, Pterospora andromedea

Looking Upriver at Benham Falls

Given the rampant pace of increase in new COVID cases (aren't we done with that sh*t yet?!!?), we decided to stay at home and not brave public spaces with masses of holiday celebrants. In the mid-afternoon, I made us a couple of caipirinhas to set the mood. Later on, I cooked some small potatoes that I made into potato salad (sour cream, bacon, and parsley) and then grilled some hot dogs that we scored earlier in the week just for this little mini-celebration.

Although we don't eat hot dogs very often, when we do, we are questing after a faint memory from our collective childhoods in which a hot dog was a hot dog. It seems that our requirements for hot dogs are modest, yet we cannot find one that really scratches our itches. We want three things: deep flavor, succulence, and above all, that elusive and inimitable snap when you bite in. We got two different kinds from a local farm, a regular dog that was fairly good and one styled a Louisiana Hot that was pretty bad with all manner of fake flavors. Our search for the holy hot dog grail continues.

Caipirinhas 

Hot Dogs and Potato Salad