Easter 2026

Rob and Dyce were kind enough to invite us for Easter dinner at their house on a gorgeous day, clear enough to see all the way to Mt. Adams in Washington. Some food was eaten. Some rosé was drunk. Some tales were told.

How Appropriate for Easter
Dyce's Deviled Eggs

Starter Cocktail, Hugo Spritz
Prosecco, St-Germain, Mint, and Soda Water

Hard to Beat Patty Green Tempranillo Rosé

Rob's Ham

Barbara's Asparagus
with a Sort of Pistachio Pesto

Potato Gratin

Carot Salad: Salade de Carottes Râpées
Found Everywhere in France

I Made Biscuits for the Ham

Ann Made Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Stunning Sunset: Three-Fingered Jack, Black Butte, Mt. Jefferson

Easter 2025

Rob and Dyce invited us over for Easter dinner starring a huge Berkshire pork ham from Snake River Farms. They went all out with cocktails, deviled eggs, the ham, a potato-chile gratin, chilled asparagus, and an arugula salad with blood oranges, almonds, and blue cheese. I kicked in a batch of buttermilk biscuits at Dyce's request.

Dyce Cocktailing It

Prosecco, St. Germain, Sparkling Water, Lime, and Mint

Gorgeous Dill Pickle Deviled Eggs

Queen Lola

Arugula, Blood Oranges, Almonds, and Blue Cheese

The Guest of Honor

Potato and Chile Gratin

Biscuits, Because Ham Does Not Want to Dance Solo

Chilly, Just Before Sunset

Another Easter is in the books, a great day with great friends. We had a wonderful time on a beautiful day, talked and laughed a lot, drank some rosé, played with the dogs, and ate far too much food. Thanks so much to Rob and Dyce who went overboard in cooking way too much delicious food and being such gracious hosts.

Memorial Day 2024

Another Memorial Day is in the books. Now that we are starting to have some spring weather, Ann has whipped our courtyard patio into shape and has been looking forward to entertaining out there. So we invited Michelle and Andreas and Jen and Will over for a little cookout and relaxation.

Ann Worked Really Hard to Set Up our Outdoor Space
After a Long Winter

It really didn't take long to put together a menu once we decided that the feature would be ribs. When I look back at our Memorial Day posts, they always feature something on the grill, late May typically signifying the beginning of our outdoor grilling season. The menu we arrived at for this Memorial Day was:

Cannellini and Roasted Red Pepper "Hummus"

Dry-Rubbed Pork Spareribs

Barbeque Sauce

Chimichurri

Potato Salad with Sour Cream and Bacon

Grilled Asparagus

Strawberry-Lime-Chipotle Sorbet

I decided to start with a simple gluten-free appetizer dip for Michelle, a white bean and roasted red pepper "hummus" to be served with almond meal crackers, cucumbers, and sweet peppers. And then there would be pork spareribs for which Ann really wanted me to make chimichurri and potato salad. I wanted to grill some asparagus, because grill. And then Ann asked me to make a sorbet for dessert, and so using really the only fruit that is ripe right now, I made a strawberry-lime-chipotle sorbet as the finale to our dinner. 

When you add in making the barbeque sauce and the dry rub that I call "butt rub," that's a fair amount of cooking. So I took my usual approach of spreading it over three days so as not to overwhelm myself, but mostly so I could do the dishes in shifts and not kill myself washing half the kitchen in the hour before our guests arrived. That hour we reserve for relaxation, showers, and a pre-game glass of wine as we await our guests. 

Saturday, I made the fake hummus, a batch of Carolina "mop sauce" that would be the basis for the barbeque sauce, and a batch of dry rub. The mop sauce recipe is at the bottom of this post; you'll find the recipe is outlined here for the spice mix for the ribs that I call "butt rub." In addition, I made a super simple batch of the white bean and red pepper "hummus," the recipe for which also appears at the bottom of this post.

Vinegar and Pepper Carolina "Mop Sauce"

In my world of pork barbeque, very much influenced by East Carolina barbeque, when you put a hog on the smoker to go low and slow, you baste it (using a mop, hence the name) from time to time with a thin and tangy vinegar, salt, and hot pepper sauce. Mop sauce traditionally contains very little sugar which tends to burn with long hours in the smoker. My recipe appears at the end of this post.

First thing Sunday, I made one of the two more tedious dishes, the base for the sorbet. The tedious bit is spending 20 minutes deseeding the sorbet base, a step that is somewhat optional, but hello, I'm a chef! About the only ripe fresh fruit this time of year is strawberries. Because these strawberries were not supremely ripe and tasty, I decided to trick them up with a bit of lime and a bit of chipotle as a surprise. I put spice in a lot of my sorbets; it is both unconventional and interesting to taste a bit of a fruity sorbet only moments later for the spice to creep in on the back of the palate. My recipe is at the bottom of this post as well.

Deseeding the Strawberry Purée

While deseeding the sorbet base, I brought a pan of salted water to a boil and blanched three bunches of asparagus until just barely tender, about five minutes. I stopped the cooking in cold water and put the asparagus in the fridge to await the grill the next afternoon. When I am grilling asparagus, I almost always blanch it so that all it needs to do on the grill is get beautiful grill marks and a bit of smoke. If asparagus has any thickness at all, you risk charring the outside on the grill in an attempt to get it cooked all the way through. Precooking eliminates this risk.

Next I was on to the potato salad that Ann requested. While a potato salad still warm from the just-boiled potatoes has its appeal, I like to make potato salad the day before so it, like the sorbet base, can repose in the refrigerator and have its flavors mingle and become more pronounced. My potato salad recipe also appears at the bottom of this post.

Potato Salad with Sour Cream, Bacon, Green Onions, and Parsley

Monday I made the other really tedious dish: chimichurri. It is only tedious because when I make it for friends, I like to destem the herbs and cut them by hand. Blitzing everything in the food processor makes short work of the sauce, and I wouldn't blame you for doing it, but the texture does suffer. I have previously published my chimichurri recipe; Monday I made a double batch.

Parsley and Cilantro Flavor the Red Wine Vinegar and Olive Oil Base

Thirty Minutes Later, Destemmed Herbs Ready to Chop

Chimichurri with Hand-Chopped Herbs

Soon after tidying up from making the chimichurri, I set about the ribs, because I wanted them to sit in their coating of spices for a couple hours before starting to cook. I do not have a smoker, given that our only outdoor space is a confined courtyard where the smoke would be unwelcome. So, I opt for cooking my ribs in the oven and then finishing them on the grill outside.

My ribs were the three-pack from Costco, not gonna lie. I don't have a good pork supplier here in Oregon. After skinning them (pulling the silverskin layer off the backside using a towel for grip), I cut each of the three racks into three single-serving pieces. I do this because sparerib racks are typically longer than my half sheet trays and I do not want any drips from overhanging racks hitting the bottom of the oven. It might be sacrilegious, but not having to deep clean my oven trumps pristine racks of ribs.

 

Ribs "Marinating" in Dry Rub

When I dry-roast pork in the oven, I almost always place the pork on a bed of onion slabs. The onions add a little moisture to the pork, they keep the pork off the bottom of the pan in the same way that roasting it on a rack would do, and they are a super-tasty bonus that I planned to use later on in making my barbeque sauce.

After standing for a couple of hours to let the dry rub penetrate a bit, the ribs went into the oven. I planned a 3-step cooking process: covered to cook the ribs through, uncovered to develop the bark, and finally, mopped with sauce and re-covered in dry rub and onto the grill for a final char.

I covered the sheet trays with aluminum foil and sealed them tightly before putting them in the oven. These ribs were really thick so they ended up taking about three hours in a slow oven (275F) to get to the point where a toothpick would easily pierce them. At this point, I removed the ribs to clean sheet trays and put them back into the oven for another 45 minutes to develop a nice crust, a nice bark.

At this point, I turned off the oven and let the ribs sit until I was ready to grill them, at which point, I brushed them with sauce, re-coated them in dry rub, and put them on a hot grill for about five minutes to caramelize the sugar in the dry rub and to reheat the ribs.

Appetizer: Cannellini and Roasted Red Pepper "Hummus"

Feast is Ready!

Three Rib Accompaniments
Chimichurri (left), Dry Rub (top), Onion BBQ Sauce (right)

I'm not a big fan of barbeque sauce in that I often think that it obscures rather than complements the hard work of the pitmaster. Accordingly, I always serve a little more dry rub on the side to dust on the barbeque, if guests desire. As I mentioned earlier, Ann is a big fan of chimichurri (honestly, who is not?) and asked me to make a batch of this salsa verde to go with the ribs. And recognizing that others may indeed want barbeque sauce with their ribs, I made a complementary sauce.

This sauce I made quickly in the blender. When I uncovered the ribs, I separated the onions from the liquid in the bottom of the roasting pans. I put these meltingly tender dry rub-flavored onions, three very large ones in total, into my blender. I added three-quarters of the mop sauce (3/4 of a pint) to the blender and gave it a couple quick pulses. Then after defatting the liquid from the roasting pan, I put enough of it into the blender to yield a sauce of the consistency I wanted, the consistency that you see in the photo above. I left a decent amount of texture in the onions.

Jen, Goofing!

Somebody Must Have Told a Good Joke

Will Holding Court

Recipes

Cannellini and Roasted Red Pepper "Hummus"

Once upon a time, I threw a similar dip together using items on hand in my pantry, and the idea stuck. This is a ratio recipe: 4 parts white beans to one part roasted red peppers.

2 15.5-ounce cans of cannellini, drained

8 ounces roasted red peppers, piquillos preferably

two cloves of finely minced garlic

half a teaspoon of Kosher salt

a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika

one tablespoon of sherry vinegar

two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and smooth it out as much, Season it and serve, or refrigerate it for some hours to improve the flavor. After it warms up a bit, taste it and re-season as necessary.

Carolina "Mop Sauce" for Barbeque

Here's my classic vinegar sauce. I roughly respect the recipe, but I always make it to taste. This makes roughly a pint, plenty of mop for several shoulders or many racks. Traditionally in eastern North Carolina, the peppers used would be crushed dried red peppers or ground cayenne and often there's a touch of ketchup for color and a bit of sweetness. I use the peppers I have on hand (there's no ketchup in my house) which tends to be Huy Fong sambal oelek (crushed red jalapeños) and Huy Fong sriracha. Also typical is brown sugar. I don't happen to use it much and when I do, I buy it in bulk and buy just what I need. But I do have Demerara in the pantry, so I use that.

one pint apple cider vinegar

4 tablespoons of Demerara sugar

2 tablespoons sriracha

2 tablespoons sambal oelek

1 tablespoon Morton's kosher salt

one teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper

Put all the ingredients into a non-reactive sauce pan and bring them to a gentle boil to integrate the sugar and salt. Once cooled, taste for seasoning.

Strawberry-Lime-Chipotle Sorbet

This recipe will yield about a quart and a half of base, enough for 8 servings. I add all the seasonings to taste. This recipe is best when made the day before and refrigerated overnight so that the lime zest has time to do its job. Although it is not necessary to deseed the sorbet base, it's about 1000% better if you go to the effort (and it is effort) to do it.

4 dry pints of strawberries, hulled and halved

2 limes

1 cup sugar, or to taste

half teaspoon of Kosher salt, optional

1 ounce vodka, optional

two tablespoons chipotle adobo, to taste

While I have specified a cup of sugar or to taste, less sugar is not really an option. A good-textured sorbet (I'm not going into theory and Brix levels here) requires sugar even though the fruit might already taste sweet enough. That's why we balance the sugar with additional acid in the form of citrus (or at times a vinegar such as balsamic).

Also, I use salt to help balance the sweet. You'll never know that the salt is there but what you will notice if you taste a base with and without salt, the salted one will likely taste better. Most good pastry chefs will sneak some salt into their recipes for this reason.

Finally, I add a half a shot of unflavored vodka to the base because that tiny amount of alcohol will help break up the large ice crystals in the sorbet and yield a smoother product. By all means, if you cannot have alcohol, omit it.

Before getting started, zest and juice one of the limes. Reserve the other lime for later.

Place the strawberries, sugar, salt, vodka, lime zest, lime juice, and one tablespoon of chipotle adobo in the blender and blend until smooth. Next, push the base through a fine chinois or strainer to remove the seeds. I use a standard 2-ounce ladle to push the base through my chinois. This, unfortunately, is going to take some time and elbow grease.

Zest the other lime directly into the base and taste it. I decided that I needed the juice of half the reserved lime to balance the sweetness and that I wanted another tablespoon of adobo to bring slightly more heat. Refrigerate the base to macerate, preferably overnight. The lime flavoring from the zest will become much more pronounced after sitting overnight.

Taste and adjust seasoning just before putting the base into the freezer. I deemed that this batch of base needed nothing else, but that it not always the case.

Potato Salad with Sour Cream and Bacon

This potato salad is simple and can be served warm or cold or at room temperature. I like to make potato salad the day before I serve it so that it can repose in the refrigerator and have its flavors mingle and become more pronounced. This recipe starts with a ten-pound sack of potatoes and makes a really big bowl of potato salad, because, who doesn't like to eat too much potato salad? I used parsley and green onions in this batch, but you can use the herbs that suit you. How bad would tarragon and chervil be in this? Not at all bad; it would be wonderful.

10 pounds of small potatoes cut into bite-sized pieces

1 pound of bacon cut into lardons and cooked, grease drained

1 pint of sour cream (or more)

1 bunch of Italian parsley, minced

1 bunch of green onions, sliced (or chives, minced)

salt to taste

Place the potatoes in a large pan, add a tablespoon of salt, and cover with water. Cook, about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are just done. Drain the potatoes and while still warm, transfer to a large bowl. Add the the cooked bacon, sour cream, parsley, and onions or chives. Mix well and season to taste with salt.

You can serve this salad warm and it is wonderful. Or place it in the refrigerator overnight to let the flavors of the herbs and bacon bloom. If you refrigerate it, let it warm a bit and then taste for seasoning. Also, you may want to add more sour cream to make it creamier, though I never do because I am lactose-intolerant.

Truckee: Easy Sunday in Truckee

This is another post in the series about our visit to see our friends Kelley and Mark in Truckee, CA, our first time to the Lake Tahoe area. Today, Sunday, was all about taking it easy after our long drive down from Central Oregon yesterday. Today would see us laze about, then get a delicious breakfast with Mark and Kelley, take a short walk at 9000 feet with some fine feathered friends, dip our toes in Lake Tahoe for the first time, and while all this was going on, have our crockpot produce some really fine ragù to share with Mark and Kelley. In short, it was a delightful day.

On this vacation, after our recent whirlwind of visits to neighboring states of Idaho and Washington, we were hell bent on relaxing and staying in more of our normal routine in California. Since my retirement, our morning routine each day at our home, barring some highly unusual event, is to make a pot of coffee and do several NY Times crossword puzzles while enjoying our coffee. It's our thing. Make of it what you will. We take comfort in the ritual.

After a so-so night's sleep, the two of us jammed into a tiny, soft bed, I was pretty violently kicked awake and assaulted by my life partner. What on earth, I wondered. It turns out that Ann was attacked by a Komodo Dragon in her sleep and she was fighting it off! Rudely awakened, I got up to ease my aching back and set about figuring out how to make coffee.

To facilitate relaxing and staying in more of our normal routine, we brought beans, a grinder, and all the adulterants that Ann adds to her perfectly good coffee to contaminate it, but we depended on our hosts to provide a coffee maker. I found what I call a single-serving coffee maker in the kitchen and ultimately a tiny filter to fit it and a few minutes later, Ann and I were ensconced on the sofa with our puzzle books in hand. Really, the coffee wasn't bad even though I had to guess how many beans were appropriate for this tiny pot. The second pot was spot on!

How Cute! A Single-Serving Coffee Pot!

Our Normal Morning Routine

We were up, thanks to a very early bed time, no doubt for several hours before Mark and Kelley who were at the restaurant until close. But we were in no hurry to do anything and were content with a lazy morning with no agenda. At some point, Ann and Kelley decided that we would drive into town about 11-ish and that the four of us would get some brunch before taking a quick hike up above Lake Tahoe.

I confirmed that Mark and Kelly would come over for dinner and made a mental note to start the crockpot of meat sauce before we left. While I was waiting to go into town, I poked around a bit outside the condo we were staying in and came across a large bird's nest on top of a large outdoor light on the back porch. I'm guessing that it was the home of some baby Steller's Jays.

Steller's Jay Perhaps?

Ann and I did not have a chance to look about the Truckee-Tahoe area yesterday. We merely got off I-80 at CA 89 and then drove to our condo at twilight. Today, after rendezvousing with Mark and Kelley at their house, Mark would drive us down CA 267 to Kings Beach where we would see Lake Tahoe for the first time as we navigated east to Incline City on the Nevada side of the lake. If you're ever wondering if you're in CA or NV, just look for the casinos.

As we entered the west end of Incline Village, Mark detoured off the ring road around the lake to take Lakeshore Blvd right down on the water, where we could see the mansions of the ultra-wealthy all along the shore. Incline Village is super spendy, no doubt thanks in large part to its location just across the border in Nevada whose favorable tax rates attract California money. There's a ton of Bay Area tech money, Hollywood film money, and old school old money in the area.

At the end of Lakeshore Blvd, we backtracked into Incline Village to have brunch at Sage Leaf restaurant. In a stroke of good fortune, Mark was able to find an open parking space just opposite the restaurant. I have to say that we had a really great breakfast. I wasn't going to have anything to drink with my meal, but then when Ann (always the instigator) ordered a Bloody Mary, I followed suit. I ordered it spicy and, unusually in my experience, it was spicy, a good omen for our forthcoming food.

It was noon and I was torn between a traditional breakfast or a lunch entrée. I decided to roll the dice on a lamb burger (because I love lamb) and was rewarded with a delicious burger that actually tasted of lamb. My fries were a bit old, but the duck fat fries accompanying Ann's burger were hot and delicious. Mark got a traditional old school breakfast plate and Kelley got biscuits and gravy; both plates looked good. Ann and I, we're so used to sub-par food that this was a very pleasant meal indeed.

Sage Leaf: Delicious Lamb Burger

After breakfast, we had to wait on several confused drivers jockeying for position in the cramped parking lot before we could pull out to head up the Mt. Rose Highway. On the way up to Chickadee Ridge, we stopped at an overlook for our first real views of the lake, of Crystal Bay more specifically. It is almost impossible to take in the entire lake as it runs 22 miles north-south along the NV-CA border and 12-miles east-west. At this point in the day, the water was still capped with a mist, a mist that would burn off by the time we would return to the shore line.

Misty Crystal Bay from Mt. Rose Highway

We continued up towards the Mt. Rose ski area and parked on the side of the road just shy of Ophir Creek. We started walking on an access trail to the Tahoe Rim Trail, our goal being to see if we could see any of the local Mountain Chickadees. Mark and Kelley had heard that the tiny little birds were used to landing on people's hands to eat birdseed. I think we were all a bit skeptical and we did not bring any birdseed; I'm not down with feeding wild animals. Your mileage may vary.

We were 50 or so yards down the trail when our skepticism vanished, as the following pictures will attest. It was a very cool experience having a tiny little bird land on my hand, one so close that I could barely get my camera far enough away from it to focus! Try framing, focusing, and shooting a traditional non-point-and-shoot camera with one hand some time! As the tiny creatures buzzed noisily in the trees about us, at one point, I had four of them vying to land on my hand at once.

Priceless! A Skeptic No Longer!

So Close I Could Barely Focus, Especially with One Hand

From the access trail, we joined and continued on the Tahoe Rim Trail for a mile or so, maybe two, as we explored the landscape, ultimately turning around after having sat up on a granite outcrop looking down on the lake.

Looking out over Tahoe Meadows

Joining the TRT

A Crazy Lodgepole Pine

We started our walk something shy of about 9000 feet of elevation and climbed to just around 9000 feet according to my phone. That's a really good elevation for the endangered Whitebark Pines, a couple of which I thought I may have seen, but I did not know if they grew this far south. And I didn't notice any Clark's Nutcrackers around in the woods along the TRT. Those two species are pretty symbiotic and you typically will not find one without the other.

The woods along the TRT are full of Western White Pines, a closely related species that is easy to confuse with Whitebarks. While the trees are very similar in appearance, the cones are diagnostic for they do not look anything alike. It was not until I came upon this grouping of young Whitebarks, likely from a forgotten Clark's Nutcracker seed cache, that I found a diagnostic purplish Whitebark cone. I would finally see a Clark's Nutcracker a half mile or so down the trail.

Group of Young Endangered Whitebark Pines, Pinus albicaulis
Likely a Sprouted Seed Cache

Clark's Nutcracker

This trip to the Tahoe area would provide my first encounter with the Jeffrey Pine, a pine that is very similar to our local Ponderosas, but whose range is largely restricted to the Sierra Nevada. I probably have seen them before in Yosemite, but I was much younger then and not really focused on my surroundings. I first spied two of them right off Mark and Kelley's back porch on Saturday. On Sunday, we saw many huge specimens along the TRT. They are notable for their huge cones of which I have a photograph in a later post. 

Jeffrey Pine, Pinus jeffreyi

Salt and Pepper Sierra Nevada Granite and Pinemat Manzanita, Arctostaphylos nevadensis

Looking at Sand Harbor

Huge Western White Pine, Pinus monticola

Hillside Full of Granite Glacial Erratics

Lodgepole (aka Tahoe) Chipmunk

Late Blooming Tufted Phlox, Phlox caespitosa

Mountain Coyote Mint, Monardella odoratissima

It's Sagebrush, but Tiny! Low Sagebrush, Artemisia arbuscula

After sitting up on a large granite outcrop staring out at the distance, we wandered back to the truck via a different path, completing a circuit. From there, we headed back down to the lake to Sand Harbor on the undeveloped east side of the lake which is primarily park land. We scrambled down a bank to the crystal clear water that was quite chilly to the touch. As we were scrambling through the manzanita scrub, the experience reminded me of the shore of Paulina Lake back home.

Clear Tahoe Water

I think that perhaps Mark and Kelley wanted to do more in the afternoon, but Ann and I had had plenty of exploration for one day and were residually tired from our long drive the day before. Plus I had a pot of meat sauce cooking back at the condo and I did not want it to dry out or scorch. As we made our way back to Truckee from the lake, Kelley mentioned to Ann that it might be possible for us to change to a much nicer house for the remainder of our stay. From Mark and Kelley's, Ann and I headed back to the condo where we were staying while Mark and Kelley went to check out the condition of the other property.

When we arrived back at the condo, the glorious aroma of meat sauce greeted us. Soon enough, we got a text telling us to pack our stuff and head to the new location. So we packed our stuff and grabbed the hot crockpot full of meat sauce and headed up the hill to a gorgeous house in the Tahoe Donner neighborhood high above Truckee and Donner Lake. We proceeded to open some wine and we got busy in the large, well appointed kitchen. Dinner was a quite simple affair of meat sauce over casarecce pasta with some asparagus.

Casarecce with Ragù, Asparagus

This meat sauce, I prepped on Friday so that it could cook autonomously while we were out and about in the Truckee area. I started by rendering a fair amount of chopped bacon. The bacon went into the crockpot, while I browned cubed beef chuck in the bacon grease. After three batches of beef cubes browned, I poured off most of the grease and added three huge leeks, cut finely, to the pan. Once they were cooked, they too went into the crockpot along with a big bunch of dried porcini mushrooms that I had rehydrated the night before.

While all this was browning, I was making a braising sauce from a quart of half and half, a pint of red wine, a quart of beef broth, and a pint of porcini rehydrating liquid. This three quarts of liquid cooked down to a single quart, that when cooled, I added to the bacon, beef, leeks, and mushrooms. When the contents of the crockpot liner were cool, I put them into the refrigerator to get cold for the trip in the ice chest all the way to California.

Start of a Great Meat Sauce

After a leisurely dinner and wine at the dining room table, we moved to the large glassed-in great room with its vaulted 25-foot ceiling and stone fireplace to watch some comedy on Netflix. Late in the evening, Mark and Kelley headed back down the hill into town and Ann and I headed to bed, opening the windows a bit on either side of the bed to bring in some cool mountain air. At home in the desert, we always have the windows open to let in the cool night air.