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

Last Hurrah of Summer

In late October, the weather here in lovely Bend OR can be a real crapshoot. We could as easily have mild temperatures as snow. This year, we had some terrific Indian summer weather, perfect for gathering around the fire pit long after dusk. Just back from our trip to Truckee to see Mark and Kelley, we invited Rob and Dyce over Saturday night, the plan to enjoy this last hurrah of pretty weather before winter sets in for good. (As I type, my fingers cold in my chilly office, it is 18F outside, brrrr!)

To go with the awesome weather, Ann wanted me to make a summery dish for dinner, squash cakes, a  staple at the restaurant in season. So popular were they that I had customers begging for them in February when in our climate there in Virginia, we couldn't even set the baby squash plants out until May 15 or so, let alone have ripe fruit. I really couldn't take them off the menu from July to October when squash were in season without risking severe backlash from customers.

The squash cakes were born of a need to use massive amounts of zucchini. If you've ever grown squash, you know that when they start producing, they really come on gangbusters to the point where you may find yourself swimming in squash. It is a real trick in the restaurant business to get people to not only order something mundane that they don't really want to spend money on such as summer squash, but to get them to crave that dish to the point where you cannot take it off the menu. This is such a dish, a real coup in the kitchen, but it requires a lot of labor and time to pull off.

Before our dinner of squash cakes, we sat around the fire pit outside enjoying the last hurrah of summer. To go with our wine (Bordeaux blanc-style Semillon-Sauvignon blanc), I wanted finger food, but I had a salad (horiatiki) on the brain. So I put together these little skewers of cucumber, tomato, pickled peppers, feta, and olives. When I make horiatiki, I dress it traditionally in olive oil and lemon juice with oregano, but that dressing would be too loose and messy for finger food, so I whipped up a quick batch of tzatziki that we could daub on our skewers without too much risk of a mess.

Horiatiki Skewers with Tzatziki

After our appetizers when it was good and dark outside, we moved into the kitchen and I fried up the batch of squash cakes that I had made earlier in the day. The process is time consuming, but I find the results worth the effort.

I'm Using Grey Zucchini Here, Two Per Person
You Can Use Any Summer Squash

Grated on a Box Grater
I Wouldn't Dirty the Food Processor for Only 8 Squash

In Batches, Wring the Water Out in a Clean Towel
We Made a Light Cucumber-Tasting Sorbet from the Drained Liquid

Cook the Dry Squash in Cream

Cook All the Liquid Out
Season and Bind with Grated Pecorino and Panko

Refrigerate to Set, Then Patty out Squash Cakes

Lightly Flour or Bread the Squash Cakes, Then Fry

To go with the squash cakes, I always serve tzatziki; they are a natural combo. This time, I was feeling a light pasta salad as a side dish, so I cooked a batch of orzo and tossed it with lemon juice, olive oil, and oregano. Then I stirred in feta, wilted spinach, and just a few bits of tomato for color.

Orzo with Spinach, Feta, and Tomatoes

These squash cakes are pretty delicious but they take a long time to prepare. They're also a bit tricky to cook, too, because they want to get really creamy in the center. You have to form a good crust on them in the pan; it's the crust that holds the very soft cakes together. It's also that crust that makes a delicious crunchy contrast to the creamy center that makes this dish so delightful.

Thanksgiving 2019

John Coltrane.
Candlelight.
Mature Pinot Noir.

Pinot Noir by Candlelight

Doesn't sound like the start of a Thanksgiving post, right? At least not one that I have written on this blog before.

But it is. This year all the kids were scattered to the four winds: Lillie in Philadelphia, Ellie in Madrid, and Carter in Virginia. That left Ann and me to our own devices. To be sure, we both were feeling a little down because of the lack of hustle and bustle, but we had a wonderful day.

It was the first time in a long time that we both got in the kitchen and cooked together. And it felt good, natural, and fun. We are not often in the kitchen at the same time. To be fair, as an ex-chef, I'm used to running a kitchen my way and that's not necessarily Ann's way. I'm slowly learning to share and focus more on the experience than the outcome. I'm certain that Ann will say I have a long way to go, but yesterday worked out pretty well.

Our menu was simple: roast pork and orzo. We don't each much meat at all, living day to day on beans and vegetables mainly, with a bit of fish for animal protein, so the pork roast is way out of our ordinary. As for the choice of pork, I'm pretty done with the whole turkey thing after decades of cooking them. What's a turkey if you don't have a crowd to share it with, anyway?

Photos follow, in the order that they were shot. They tell the story of a leisurely day.

Spice Mix for the Sausage

Cup of coffee in hand, I mixed up some spices for my sausage, the stuffing for the roulade of pork: ground fennel, paprika, granulated garlic, salt, and white pepper. This is kind of a classic seasoning for finocchiona. Didn't weigh, didn't measure, eyeballed it. I wet the spices with a copious amount of Sauvignon Blanc and mixed it in to the ground pork. I tested a small batch of sausage for seasoning and decided not to change a thing. The sausage went back into the refrigerator to mellow until I needed it later to stuff the pork rack.

Testing the Sausage for Seasoning

About noon, we started to get hungry, so we went into the kitchen to finish dinner prep and get a focaccia working for lunch. I diced up some shallot and celery for Ann to sweat as she was cooking the orzo for her casserole.

Ann Sweating Celery, Shallots, and Sage

I pulled together a quick focaccia and topped it with Kalamata olives, rosemary from the front porch, grated pecorino romano, a drizzle of olive oil, and a nice sprinkle of coarse salt.

Olive, Rosemary, and Pecorino Focaccia

Then on to the pork rack, which I frenched and then unrolled.

Frenched and Unrolled Pork Rack

Ann finished up her casserole by adding flour to the mirepoix to make a blond roux and then by adding chicken stock to make a sauce velouté. She added Gruyère cheese to the sauce, melted it, and then stirred in the orzo.

Orzo Waiting for the Oven

Once I finished prepping the pork rack, I laid on a layer of the sausage that I made earlier in the morning, making sure to leave plenty of room around the edges for the sausage to spread out as I rolled the roulade.

Sausage on the Soon-to-Be Roulade

By this point, the focaccia was out of the oven and we devoured it!

The Finished Focaccia, Cooling

All that was left was to roll the pork rack roulade and tie it with butcher's twine.

Pork Rack Roulade, Ready for the Oven

Late afternoon when we started thinking about food again, having crushed the focaccia earlier, we popped both the orzo and the pork roulade into the oven.

Orzo is Done

Pork Rack Roulade Cooling

Thanksgiving calls for a special bottle of wine, so I opened this '07 Pinot Noir. 2007 was one of those cool Oregon vintages that I love, along with 2011 and 2013 (and maybe 2019, though those wines are still undergoing malolactic fermentation and it's hard to say anything yet about the baby vintage). The wine did not disappoint with its overlay of tobacco leaf and leather.

A Fine 2007 Pinot Noir

We debated cooking some spinach to accompany the pork and orzo, but as it was, this was already too much food. In the restaurant, I would have turned the pan drippings into a wonderful sauce and would have garnished the plate nicely, but it just being the two of us, I opted for simplicity. The pork was wonderfully juicy and the orzo was a perfect foil for it.

Orzo and Pork Roulade Chop

It was a slow day, a calm day, a relaxed day. I feel like we hit a good balance in making a special meal without a lot of fuss. It was great to be in the kitchen with Ann. But still, all that said, I missed some of the bustle and having the family around. I'm sure Ann did too.

Paine Run/Blackrock/Trayfoot Mountain, SNP

Alone Atop Blackrock Summit

Saturday morning, Ann got up to have coffee with me before I headed off for the final work day of the week at the restaurant. Thinking about our 6th hike of our 2017 52-Hike Challenge just before I left, I said, "We need to get up early tomorrow and get on the road." After pausing a couple of beats, she said, "Ugh!" You might think that she was reacting to getting up early on a Sunday, but I was on the same mental wavelength with her and I said, "We have Thermoses, don't we?" I just knew she was thinking about the miserable coffee and breakfast experience we had at Sheetz last weekend. I think it's time to face that fact that we are, if not coffee snobs, at least hardcore coffee aficionados. "We can brew a pot while we are packing the car and take it with us," I offered, "And I can make us some breakfast today at work."

Lox and Smoked Bluefish Cream Cheese Sandwiches

And so it was that we started thinking about our hike a day early, a hike that would be our first foray into the southern district of Shenandoah National Park. We set off down I-81 about 8:30am for the long ride armed with coffee and sandwiches of lox and smoked bluefish cream cheese. At Weyer's Cave just south of Harrisonburg, we would leave the interstate and head east to Grottoes and thence to the western boundary of the park a few miles south and east of Grottoes, a straight shot to the dead end on Horsetail Rd. We weren't exactly sure where the trailhead was but it turned out that when the dirt road ended in a little cul-de-sac, the trail was the continuation of the road. It could not have been easier to find.

Most hikes in SNP start on Skyline Drive. I'm not a fan. Invariably, you head downhill (at the top, there's nowhere to go but down, unless you are ridgewalking the AT or a parallel trail) when you are fresh only to have to climb back to your vehicle at the end of your hike. Much better in my opinion to start at a park boundary, climb to Skyline Drive while you are fresh, and then be left with a downhill walk at the end of your day.

Our hike would take us northeast up Paine's Run to Skyline Drive and the Appalachian Trail. After following the AT north to Blackrock Summit, we would head west towards Furnace Mountain but turn off before getting there to walk along the ridge of Trayfoot Mountain southwest back towards the car. This is not a common hike and so finding maps and trail descriptions was a bit of a struggle.

The weather this winter has been nuts. It is still February; it hit 75 degrees this week; and the daffodils have started blooming. Fortunately for us, a cold front blew through about 1pm on Saturday bringing a little thunder, some gusty winds, black clouds, a few spatters of rain, and thankfully, cooler temperatures. We walked Sunday under bright blue skies with slightly gusty winds with temperatures in the 40s; all in all, a great day to be on the trail.

Fording Paine's Run

Paine's Run is a beautiful gurgling little creek that apparently runs along the border between Rockingham County and Augusta County as it falls down from the mountains. The trail up from the end of the road to Skyline Drive and the Appalachian Trail is constantly uphill, but very gentle. It was a harbinger of what would be a very easy 10-mile walk on the day. This yellow-blazed trail allows horses and it was clear from the hoof prints and the horse apples that it is well-used by equestrians, though none were about on Sunday.

Paine's Run is a Beautiful Stream

As we climbed up the hill, we could see several rock formations on the hillside opposite, on Trayfoot Mountain. We would return through these rock formations at the end of our hike.

Rock Formations on Trayfoot Mountain

As we walked up the gentle grade towards Skyline Drive, Ann said to me that she thought we ought to change the name of this blog, an idea that had been percolating in the back of my mind for some time. Originally conceived to document our forays into food and drink, the name Mangia e Beve, while perfect for that, no longer seems to encompass our lives, especially our life on the trail. For many minutes we debated new names and themes, not really getting to a resolution.

We might have come to some idea about rebranding the blog, but that will have to wait. As we climbed to about 3000 feet up on the mountain, just below Skyline Drive, our phones got signal and they both started blowing up simultaneously with message after message and voicemail after voicemail. My mother had died suddenly in her sleep.

I suppose if you must get such terrible news, it isn't so bad to get it on a gorgeous day, out on the side of a mountain, all alone except for your best hiking buddy/friend/wife. After a bit of a daze and a phone call to my sister, there was nothing for it except to push on up the hill. Nothing we could do would change what had happened and I needed to walk.

Blackrock Gap, 700 Feet Below the Summit

Not two or three minutes after restarting our hike, we came upon the parking lot at Blackrock Gap on the western side of Skyline Drive. It was pretty easy to spot the white blaze across the road for the Appalachian Trail, which we took north in an easy walk, climbing gently all the way, just over a mile to Blackrock Summit. The AT started following Skyline Drive as you see in the photo, but stayed west of the pavement as Skyline Drive turned eastward. There was no car traffic so road noise wasn't an issue on this hike as it typically is on the AT in Shenandoah National Park.

On the AT Headed to Blackrock Summit

Just before reaching the summit, you will come to a four-way intersection. If you are northbound on the AT, the Trayfoot trail heads left down the hill and right up to the Blackrock parking lot. Even though you are headed to Trayfoot and ought to be heading left, you really want to stay straight on the AT here. Very quickly you will come to the summit and you will see the Trayfoot Spur trail heading west off the mountain. This is the trail you will take to Trayfoot. But first, keep going around the corner to your right to see all the vistas Blackrock has to offer, before backtracking to the spur.

The higher we climbed the more we could see what looked to be rockslides on the sides of Trayfoot Mountain. These are in truth scree fields made of very large boulders, though that is impossible to tell from a distance. It was only as we climbed to Blackrock Summit, itself a rock scramble of a scree field, that we could gauge the size of the rocks. These appear to be a form of sandstone (NPS says it is quartzite from highly compressed quartz sand) from an old seabed that tends to fracture into blocks. From the rusty color of a lot of blocks, I surmise that there is a fair amount of iron lurking in this stone. As you can see in the photo below, some blocks are nearly as tall as Ann.

Approaching Blackrock Summit

Looking Southwest Down Paine Run; Trayfoot Right

Given Blackrock Summit's very close proximity to Skyline Drive, we were fortunate to have it almost to ourselves. We met a young family just leaving as we were approaching and three other hikers came south down the AT, but did not linger (Why people? It's gorgeous here!), as we were scrambling to the very top.

Northwest from Blackrock

Summit Marker at AT-Trayfoot Spur Junction

On the Rockpile

Annie Bundled Against the Wind

After winding around the summit on the AT, we backtracked a few yards to a decent enough looking spot, just opposite the junction of the Trayfoot Spur and started scrambling to the top. The huge rocks were a good bit tougher for Ann to climb than for my huge self. I climbed all the way to the top for the incredible 360-degree views.

After 20 minutes or so on the summit, it was time to get down out of the wind and find a more sheltered spot for lunch. Taking the Trayfoot spur trail west down from the summit through the boulder field, we found a small north-facing cliff face on which to sit and enjoy our lunch of baked orzo with ricotta and salsa bolognese, finished with an almond-fudge cookie. Who says we don't eat well?

Funny story about the pasta. On the way up, just before we got into the thick of our discussion about renaming the blog, we were talking about pasta and when we last had real pasta. Although we love it dearly, we're both still some pounds too heavy (but lots lighter than at this time last year) and it's not on the diet. We both had a good laugh when I asked what the odds were that I brought pasta for lunch: Ann because she knew it was impossible and I because I knew I had small containers of pasta hidden in my pack. With all the calories we are burning, we can eat a bit of pasta now and again. Who would have thought that cold pasta could taste so good?

Trayfoot Ahead, Taking the Spur

After lunch, we continued on west around the northern shoulder of Trayfoot, which you see in the photo above. Although it looks pretty high, it is only 300 feet above us with most of that elevation gain coming in the last tenth of a mile to the summit. That was the only steep gradient of the day and it was very, very short. Once at the summit, which you reach almost immediately at the northern end of Trayfoot, it is a long slow descent over about three miles back to the car along the ridgeline. Out east are decent enough views to see how high we are above Skyline drive off in the distance. I imagine that this ridgeline trail becomes a long green tunnel when the leaves are out, so it is another trail best hiked in winter.

Skyline Drive Below in the Distance

A White Polypore?

Once we neared the southern end of the mountain, the trail started weaving in and out of the rock formations, making for a very interesting ridgeline hike, before dropping off the end of the hill and quickly back down to the creek. We encountered five hikers on this part of the trail, coming up from where we parked the car; otherwise, we had the trail all to ourselves. It was a beautiful day for a hike and though ours was the lone car at the trailhead when we left, there were 7-8 others there when we finished around 2:30pm.

Trayfoot Trail Weaves Among the Rocks

We had decided to stop for a beer in Harrisonburg on the way back to Winchester. The original plan was to stop at Three Notch'd Brewing's Harrisonburg outpost and see what their beer was all about with a potential stop later at Brothers Brewing. We ended up liking Three Notch'd so much that we stayed for a second beer and decided to forego Brothers, whose beers we have had on numerous occasions.

Three Notch'd Brewing's Industrial Vibe

Minute Man New England Style IPA

Jack's Java Espresso Stout

Annie got Jack's Java Espresso Stout which was pretty amazing. We've poured both Troeg's Java Head and Monocacy's Brewtus Coffee Imperial Stout at the restaurant and both are excellent beers. Jack's is both creamier and more coffee-flavored. No secret that I'm a big hops guy. The bartender said he had just the beer for me and brought me a taste of Minute Man IPA. I was dubious because the chalkboard description for this beer read "20 IBU" and most of the beers I have been drinking recently are in the 100+ category.

I was so confused by the fresh citrus hop nose and the fresh hops on the palate that I actually went back up to the bartender to ask him how a beer that is less bitter than their stout can have so much hop character and such a wonderful hop nose. The beer is dry hopped after the wort is cooled, giving it a lot of aromatics without the bitterness from boiling the hops. I'm a believer. This beer was awesome.

Awesome Post Hike Beer Drinking Recliners!

How cool was it that they have recliners for us to relax in après hike? Two beers, a decent hike, and some crushing news and I was spent. Ann drove us home up I-81. We spent a half an hour mired in ten miles of stop-and-go traffic because of an accident near Maurertown. I didn't bank on that and with two beers on board, we had to make a screaming emergency restroom exit in Stephens City. Whew!