Monday Afternoon Tapas

It's not much of a secret that Ann and I hang out at Two Dogs Taphouse in downtown McMinnville on a fairly regular basis. We've become friendly with most of the staff there and recently, we found out that three of them are moving away to Bend in mid-September to see a different part of Oregon. We made plans to get together as a last hurrah and I decided to make some tapas that we could graze on. Hanging out with younger folks helps keep us young.

Ann asked me why I chose tapas and honestly, I don't know what got me going down that path except for perhaps the vast quantity of padrón peppers in the farmers market recently. I do know that tapas are the kind of party food that I prefer: finger food that doesn't require much in the way of silverware or tableware as well as being food that I can set out beforehand so I can socialize and not have to cook during the event.

White Bean-Stuffed Piquillos

Stuffing piquillos is always a no-brainer tapa. I blitzed up a bunch of cannellini with garlic and pimentón then spooned the mix into the peppers. I was feeling lazy; ordinarily, I'd put the bean paste in a pastry bag with no tip and squirt the peppers full. One less thing to clean up, I guess. Two other great stuffings that I have done: paella-style rice for one and mashed potatoes with home-salted cod for another.

Grilled Shrimp and Olive Skewers

The flavor of olives and shrimp when grilled together is one of those one-plus-one-equals-three dishes. The sweetness of the shrimp meshes well with the slight saltiness of the olives (though these olives were not very salty). To amplify the grill char (hard to get a lot of char on small shrimp before they overcook), I made a bit of smoky pimentón sauce to garnish the skewers with. I made plenty of that sauce, put it in a squirt bottle, and I noticed everyone was squirting it on everything: it is that good!

Pork Pinchitos Morunos

Skewers (pinchos, pintxos, pinchitos) are a classic tapa and I decided to go with pork pinchitos morunos, literally little Moorish skewers. Although the Arabs (the Moors) who brought the skewers across from North Africa would not use pork for religious reasons, the dish is most commonly made with pork in modern-day Spain. The Moorish influence is honored today by marinating the pork in ras el hanout, a batch of which I made for this party. Ras el hanout is a North African all-purpose spice mix.

Searing Padrón Peppers for the Tortilla

Tortilla of Padrones and Onions

Tortillas, the Spanish egg dish similar to Italian frittatas, is another common and easy-to-make tapa. I seared padrón peppers in a hot pan with olive oil. We could have eaten them just like that in their traditional fashion, but I like their flavor with eggs, so I destemmed and deseeded them. Then I caramelized a couple large onions with fresh thyme and garlic. To assemble the tortilla, I layered the peppers and onions in a skillet and poured a dozen beaten eggs over. This went into a slow oven and baked, about an hour, until the eggs were set all the way through.

Souvlaki

I really miss the Greek Festival every August back in Winchester. The really crummy and cheap Greek wine under the big tents out front of the church, the kids running around like crazy, the smells of roasting lamb and grilling souvlakia, all accompanied by the strains of the emphatic bouzouki band. It was so miserably hot and humid every year, but a heck of a lot of fun! Thinking about it got me to wanting to make some souvlaki ("little skewers") from a pork tenderloin that I had in the refrigerator.

Souvlaki, Spinach, Rice, Tzatziki

The marinade for souvlaki starts with lots of garlic and oregano. Good thing our oregano is going nuts in the back yard right now.

Oregano and Garlic, Sine Qua Non of Souvlaki

I put the finely minced oregano and garlic in a gallon bag along with the zest and juice of a lemon, and a few glugs of extra virgin olive oil.

Ready for the Refrigerator

I cut a large pork tenderloin into roughly one-inch dice, yielding enough cubes for four nice skewers of souvlaki. Into the bag to marinate, the pork went in the refrigerator for two hours before firing the grill.

Skewers of Pork Ready for the Grill

I like to grill my souvlaki hot and quick, so I fired all three burners of the grill for 20 minutes before putting the pork on. The skewers were done at about two to two and a half minutes per side: that's a hot grill.

Souvlaki on the Grill

I wish you could have smelled the fragrant smoke coming off the grill as some of the olive oil in the marinade dripped onto the flame baffles. That's about as good a smell as there is! I know the neighborhood had to be jealous!

I'd normally want to shove these small pork kebabs in a pita with a bit of sliced cucumber and a slathering of tzatziki. I did want to do that this time as well, but we're watching the amount of bread that we shove in our faces.

At least for a few minutes, we were transported back to the Greek Festival in Virginia. Too bad the closest festival is in downtown Portland, an hour and a parking nightmare away. Opa!

Tibbet Knob Encore

The title of this blog "Forks in Our Road" is very appropriate for this post. Life has its way of throwing up obstacles and challenges and screwing with your best-made plans. How you deal with that is up to you. It's best to be flexible and take the long view. So, let me start with the punch line before I get into the joke. Yesterday turned out to be a wonderful day with my wife. And the joke: nothing, but nothing, went according to plan.

So last week, the windows on the Jeep stopped working. Blown fuse, right? No. The shop ordered a new fuse (the wrong amperage, idiots) and when I went to put it in, the old one wasn't blown. Crap. The switch is hosed but they'll have to have a look at it to make sure and to make sure they order the correct replacement, which given their track record, is a crapshoot. The first time they can get us in is 2pm on Sunday, prime hiking time, or else we wait 2-3 weeks for a weekday slot.

So Sunday it is. Cancel those hiking plans. Hey, but let's make lemonade from those lemons. Let's go on a sunset hike to Big Schloss where the view of the sunset will be spectacular and the trail is easy enough to negotiate in the dark coming back. Ann was all for that and wanted to spend the night too so that we could schlep a bottle of Champagne up to the top to have with our dinner as we waited for the sun to set. So the plan is coming together. But the fat lady, she hasn't sung yet.

Sunday turns out just not to be a day for Annie to be motivated. She is nearly 10am getting out of bed and has been doing the same for the past 2-3 days. In the back of my mind, I know that she's off her game. We finally get our gear packed and the car loaded up and we're ready by 1pm. So, let's get some lunch before we hit the shop and we'll hang out in the waiting room and then head to Big Schloss after.

Where to eat? In the shopping center next to the shop is a newly opened kabob house in the space where a really crappy kabob house used to be. Bonus, we know the owner of the new kabob house. He owns the salon next door and Ann worked for him briefly. Shameless plug: Classic Kabob in Winchester has really good food. It's sad that we found this out just weeks before we move, but it is what it is.

Annie and Outstanding Chickpea Stew

Falafel Platter 

Lamb Sandwich

Lamb Platter

It turns out that the owner, Daniel, was in the restaurant when we went in and we spent a minute or two chatting with him. Annie, who generally orders too much food, ordered both a falafel platter and a lamb sandwich. I got a lamb platter not wanting to load up on bread. I want to load up on bread, but my belly is smaller if I don't! Everything is as you see it, nicely cooked and nicely presented and this restaurant is worlds better than the crappy joint that it replaced. The chickpea soup in particular was outstanding. It's just really nice to find a restaurant that cares about the product that it puts out.

We get to the Jeep dealer and of course, the mechanic is running behind. But long story short, involving a waiting room with obnoxious cartoons on the TV, it only takes an hour and fifteen minutes, of which the mechanic only spent a half an hour working, and so our bill was half of what we expected. Sure enough, we need a new switch and hopefully it comes in this week and we can get it dealt with. Having no windows in a vehicle is a decided bummer.

An uneventful 55-minute drive found us driving up into Wolf Gap on the Virginia-West Virginia border between Shenandoah and Hardy counties. As we arrived right at 4:00pm, we had plenty of time to kill so we thought we would head south out of the gap for the 3.3-mile round trip to Tibbet Knob before returning to the gap and heading north to Big Schloss in time to catch the sunset.

On the way down, Annie had already decided to forego camping because I had an early morning appointment back in Winchester and she did not want to get up early and "be rushed" getting back to town. We planned to drive back to town sometime before midnight.

Starting the Tibbet Knob Hike

First Overlook Looking East

It was clear from the outset that Ann was not having a good day. Finally, about halfway up to the top I said to her, "You don't look like you're having any fun today." And she replied, "I'm not" and trudged on for a couple more minutes before telling me to hike to the top on my own and that she would wait for me on a rock beside the trail.

At that point, I knew she really wasn't doing well, so I set off for the top at a very quick pace, finishing the rocky uphill three-quarters of a mile with two rock scrambles in 15 minutes. I climb hills really well (that might be why Annie calls me a mountain goat though it might also be for some of my other more caprine qualities) and though I missed my wife's company greatly, it was kind of fun to unleash the beast on the hill.

Big Schloss from Tibbet Knob

Another View North from Tibbet Knob

I texted Ann to let her know that I was at the top and she replied that she was heading back down to the gap to find a picnic table on which to lie. At this point, I knew our day was done and there would be no heading up to Big Schloss for the sunset. It doesn't do any good to get angry about such a situation. We all go through periods when we just don't feel well. For myself, my employees just about called 911 on Friday because an hour before a crazy dinner service, I was lying on the floor of the restaurant, face white as a sheet, with rivers of sweat pouring off me. Sometimes you just don't feel well. I get it.

Anyway, I tried valiantly to catch her on the way back, but she had too much of a head start. And I might have stopped to pick some blueberries. We rendezvoused at a picnic table just shy of the gap and then made our way back to the car and home. We didn't get to do what we set out to do, but I got in a good speed hike and we ended up having a great evening at home. Lemonade from lemons.

Blueberries: Free Hiker Snacks

Back home, we unpacked our dinner and Champagne and had it on the sofa while catching up on a series that we are watching. I made us sandwiches of goat cheese, spinach, avocado, turkey, and tomato for our hike and while they might have tasted marginally better up on Big Schloss, they were really good back at home.

Big Schloss Fare

And my genius self decided to put our Champagne in the PlatyPreserve wine bottle for our hike to save the weight of the Champagne bottle. But as you can see in the photo below, the collapsible bottle is pregnantly distended, never being intended for sparkling wine. The soft sides of the bottle stretch enough to let all the carbon dioxide come out of solution, leaving a weakly fizzy drink behind, in this case grand cru Chardonnay from our Roland Champion Chouilly Grand Cru Champagne.

Epic Fail: Platypreserve and Champagne

Because we were doing a lightweight overnight hike, I decided to bring a single pair of shoes to use on the trail and in camp. I chose my Keen Newport H2s. I've hiked in them on fairly non-technical trails and they do great, but this would be my first time with steep slopes, rocky trails, and a couple of somewhat technical rock scrambles. I have to say that they did great. I am considering hiking in them more and more as an alternative to my trail runners.

Sona, Winchester

Taking advantage of our time off to catch up with friends, we made our first trip in a long while to see our friend Shiv Kumar at his restaurant Sona on the south side of Winchester.

Ever the fantastic soup maker, Shiv brought us each a bowl of his fiery red chicken soup before we had ordered dinner. To help wash down the Taj Mahal beers, we started with Channa Chat, a chickpea salad, and then went on to plates of lamb Seekh Kebab, ground lamb skewers traditionally cooked over coals but roasted in the tandoor in this case; a saag, braised greens; and a braised bone-in chicken dish that Shiv calls Murgh Punjabi. Man, that chicken was fantastic!

Nothing Like a Taj with Indian Food!

Channa Chat

Seekh Kebab Hiding under Salad

Murgh Punjabi—Delicious!