Chipotle Rockfish with Mojo Black Beans

Chipotle Rockfish with Mojo Black Beans

We had some scraps leftover at the restaurant this weekend: trimmings from two huge Rockfish that I butchered and the tail end of a huge can of black beans. I brought them home for dinner Tuesday night.

I have taken to throwing fish scraps on a sheet tray and roasting them in the oven until done. They're not picturesque, but it seems better than throwing the scraps into a stock pot. These I tossed in a bit of oil, salt, and chipotle adobo before roasting.

For a couple of days, Ann has been talking about mojo. That got me thinking about the black beans. Because it is so warm now, I decided to try a black bean salad with a mojo dressing. It worked really well though I never had any reason to believe that it wouldn't be fantastic.

To the black beans (about a half a gallon) I added a quarter of a yellow onion in small dice, a diced poblano, three small tomatoes in dice, the supremes* from two oranges, and about a half a cup of thinly chiffonaded culantro. The dressing was pretty simple: juice of a lime, the juice from squeezing the remains of the two oranges, a splash of EVOO, cumin, salt, oregano, and a healthy splash of chipotle adobo for heat.

Really simple. Really fresh. Really good. The beans are a keeper.

*supreme is the fancy chef word for seedless and rindless orange sections.

Little Devil's Stairs/Glen Manor

We've seen more bears this year than ever; we seem to have a bumper crop and I'm starting to worry about bear-human conflict. We all know the bears won't win. Sunday was no exception; as we drove down Keyser Run road about a mile before the Little Devil's Stairs trailhead, we saw a big black bear galloping down the middle of the road in front of us for about 25 yards before going crashing into the woods next to Keyser Run.

The sun wasn't up terribly high by the time we hit the trailhead at 8:30 and the woods were even darker, especially up in the canyon that is Little Devil's Stairs. Taking photographs in this dim light was a non-starter and so there are no photographs of the canyon itself or of Keyser Run coming down through it, which is a shame because it is ruggedly beautiful.

The first half a mile from the trailhead and parking lot was an easy walk through the woods. From there, the trail climbed a thousand feet over the next mile. Trekking poles were of no use going up and Ann stowed hers. The trail, as it meandered back and forth across the stream between the canyon walls, required handholds in a few places. It took me a little while to get used to climbing with my pack on. I'm not terribly used to the altered center of gravity which is not noticeable on most hikes.

From the top of the stairs, we continued the gentle climb to the Fourway intersection with the Keyser Run fire road and continued across on the Piney Branch trail, staying to the left at each trail intersection making a big counterclockwise loop that ultimately saw us rejoin the fire road at the Bolen Cemetery, a reminder of the hardscrabble life that people led up in the hollows before Shenandoah National Park was assembled in the 1930s.

Bolen Cemetery: Life Before SNP

After gaining a thousand feet in a mile, we spent the next five miles giving all that elevation up going gently downhill along the Piney River or Piney Branch. We took a break for lunch (goat cheese, arugula, sun-dried tomato pesto, and chorizo wraps along with a couple handfuls of blueberries) just at the point where the trail crosses to the opposite bank of the creek, shortly before recrossing the creek for a quick climb up to the cemetery and a final mile of fire road down to the parking lot. The hiking sites say we did just over nine miles; our GPS said 8.5. I tend to believe the GPS; the hike didn't feel all that long.

Cooling off in Piney Branch

Hiker Lunch: Goat Cheese, Arugula, Sun-Dried Tomato, and Chorizo Wraps

Here and there through the woods, I found patches of sunshine (and flowers making use of that sunshine) for photos. Many of the following photos are iffy, the lack of light and lack of a tripod being what they are. We walked through large patches of White Bergamot, Monarda clinopdia, but I could never get the camera to focus on the very airy bloom heads in the dappled light. Ditto for the off-white bloom spikes of American Wintergreen, Pyrola americana. We were both surprised to come upon a patch of Squawroot still in bloom. In my book, it's a late spring flower, not a mid-summer one.

There were lots of Doll's-Eyes in various stages of ripening, but only one that had fully turned white and that was in a little glimmer of sunlight. Too bad they are poisonous.

Actea pachypoda (Doll's-Eyes or White Baneberry)

White Sweet Clover, Melilotus albus, Surprising in the Woods

The pale touch-me-nots have just started blooming along the stairs but in a couple of weeks, the stairs should be awash in golden blossoms. This is probably the most common plant along the moist part of the trail and at times, we had to wade through them so tight were they packed alongside the narrow trail.

Pale Touch-me-not, Impatiens pallida, All over the Stairs

For the past several hikes, I have seen lots of Geums in the woods and none in enough light to photograph. This one is missing a petal and the white bloom is blown out from overexposure in the dim light.

A Geum, probably virginianum, Missing a Petal

A Beautiful Heal-All

Moth Feeding on a Heal-All

Meadow Rue in Full Bloom

Possibly Common Nipplewort, Lapsana communis

I am surprised that this is the first and only Columbine that I have seen in bloom this year. I must be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis

Fly Poison, Amianthium muscaetoxicum, a Lily

Indian Pipe

Also Indian Pipe??

For weeks, I have been trying to get a decent photo of long-leaved bluets, which are often found trailside in the woods. The light is too low and the blooms are too small. This is the best of dozens and dozens of frames.

Long-Leaved Bluet, Houstonia longifolia

Very Few Roses Still in Bloom

We had yet to encounter any Purple Flowering Raspberries this year but all along this trail we found them almost everywhere there was a little clearing. They are a most beautiful and spineless raspberry, but sadly the fruit isn't all that good to eat.

Purple Flowering Raspberries, Rubus odoratus, Everywhere

Black Cohosh Along the Fire Road

I thought these maidenhair ferns were beautiful. Though I don't pay too much attention to the ferns growing alongside the trail, I don't recall seeing maidenhairs elsewhere.

Northern Maidenhair Fern, Adiantum pedatum

After our hike as we were heading back in to Front Royal up and over Chester Gap, Ann wondered aloud if we could go to see Jeff and Kelly. I mentioned that we were on the wrong side of the mountain, but cut across to the west side as soon as we got to the foot of the mountain in Front Royal. Soon enough, we were pulling up to a full parking lot and a jam packed tasting room. It's always good to see them busy.

Enjoying a Well-Earned Sauvignon Blanc

It seems that I knew pretty much all of the guests in the tasting room and being grubby and tired after a hike, I just wanted to get a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and head outside under the shade of an umbrella. So I just kind of bypassed a whole lot of line, gave Kelly a hug, and asked her if she would grab me a bottle of SB. And with that, we went outside to drink our wine, rest, and wait for things to die down so that we could socialize a bit.

Kelly invited us to stay for the staff blind tasting afterwards. Once all the guests had left, we all gathered on the back patio and tasting four blind wines. Had I known that this was going to happen, I would have brought a bottle along. We tasted a Virginia Rkatsiteli, a Willamette Pinot, a Piemontese Barbera, and a California Petit Sirah. Begrudgingly, we had to leave around 7:45 and got back to the house just before hiker midnight, 9pm. After a shower, that was all she wrote for Ann. Too much fun made her a sleepy girl!

So-So Sushi

So-So Sushi

Tuesday night I was scheduled to be off, but when I arrived at the restaurant, I found a message from an old high school friend that he and his wife were traveling north and would be in town for dinner at the restaurant. I couldn't not see him and so I suggested to Ann that we meet him and his wife at the restaurant for a drink and then we would leave them to their dinner and go out ourselves and get some sushi. That is, turn it into date night. To my surprise, she was OK with it. I expected her to resist; she is rightfully jealous of our time together.

Long story short, our favorite sushi place was closed for a well-earned mini-vacation after the 4th of July break, so we ended up at another place to which we had never been. As usual, I let Ann pick what we were having and so we ended up with an assortment of nigiri and maki. The fish quality was so-so, the portions were small, and the craftsmanship was minimal. If you click on the picture you can see that the ginger is hanging off the plate, the eel is beat up, and the hamachi is not the right color, indicative of poor quality fish. The spicy tuna roll didn't even look like tuna and wasn't spicy. Maybe it wasn't the correct order, but in any case, either way, it shows indifference. And indifference I don't need. I won't be going back.

July 4th

Monday July 4th was a great day because I got to spend it with my wife. We (read I) wanted to go hiking, but for a lot of reasons, that just didn't work out. But we got a lot of other things accomplished instead.

The morning started early as do all Mondays at our house with me taking the dogs out. As I walked to the back door, I could see a red fox in the backyard, staking out the rabbit burrow under the back stairs. This is the first time that I have actually laid eyes on said fox, but I have known of it for a couple years from plentiful scat and from tracks in the snow. About this time, Charlie spotted it and commenced to barking and carrying on. The fox cocked its head and looked at the dog going crazy, then trotted off in the direction of the hedgerow behind the house, where it sat for a while before heading out of sight. I would see it a few more times throughout the morning as it was scoping out the rabbits. Persistent bugger.

Coffee with Grace the Lap Cat

The weather was a bit misty/chilly so we took our coffee in the sunroom before Ann headed off to yoga. While she was away, I planted and transplanted several plants in the garden, created a new bed for our cucumelons and another for some iris that we would get later in the day, and dug a hole for a newly acquired prickly pear.

When she returned, we went to the annual July 4th plant sale at the local nursery. We save our pennies all year and give ourselves a $100 budget. This year, though we only found one thing out of four on our wish list (irises), we managed to score 22 pots for $96. Our meager funds go a long way though. For example, two pots of irises I divided into 12 plants, but your guess is as good as mine about what colors they will be. That's the downside of the big sale; very little is marked and often it's a crapshoot. Our other crapshoots in years past, Rose of Sharon and wisteria, turned out great and no doubt these irises will too.

A bonus was the overcast, chilly, and slightly rainy weather that kept a lot of people away from what is usually one of the biggest circuses of the year. It was raining lightly by the time we were checking out.

Quick Lunch Out at Thai Winchester

From the nursery, we headed downtown to the restaurant to get a bottle of wine for dinner and my heavy workgloves so that I could plant the prickly pear. Ask Ann about those spines! It was midafternoon and we were starving, not having had any breakfast, so we popped across the street to Thai Winchester for a quick lunch. Look how fabulously skinny Ann looks in the photo above tackling her Singha.

Siu Mai at a Thai Restaurant???

By the time we walked to Thai Winchester, it was raining solidly and we were pretty wet and chilled. There was never any doubt that we were going to order bowls of roasted duck noodle soup. Ann surprised me by ordering "steam dumplings" for an appetizer. They turned out to be pork siu mai, not something that I would ever expect or order in a Thai restaurant. They were fine but I've had and made a lot better. The soup was fabulous as ever.

Roasted Duck Noodle Soup

Back home, we spent a couple hours out in the rain putting in all the plants that we bought in the morning and were thoroughly wet and miserable by the time we were done. After hot showers and a bit of rest in front of the TV, I made us lamb burgers with cucumber-yogurt salad. Dolmades were on the menu too, but Ann pulled them out for late afternoon snack while we were watching TV.

Lamb Burger, Cucumber-Yogurt Salad, Dolmades Absent

We had planned all week to have lamb burgers for the Fourth and so I made them at work on Saturday morning, starting by grinding a leg of lamb. The mix contains EVOO, cream, salt, pepper, pimentón, oregano, garlic, and feta cheese. I would have grilled them except the weather sucked and we ran out of gas last week and forget to get a new tank. The cucumber salad is cucumbers, Greek yogurt, salt, sugar, and rice vinegar. We had a Barolo with our lamb.

It was a really good day, just Ann and me. I would pay for the day off later in the week, but it was still worth it.

Sky Meadows

Our hike on Sunday July 3rd at Sky Meadows in Fauquier County was probably seven of the easiest miles that I have ever walked but also seven of the most interesting in that we walked through so many varied habitats: fields and pastures, open woods, wet bottom, upland forest, and balds. The picture below shows why I love to visit Sky Meadows: the views and the wildflowers are spectacular.

Wonderful View from the Ambassador Whitehouse Trail

It was most fortunate that we were running behind (or rather not hurrying in drinking our coffee) and so arrived at the gate at 8:50, even though the gate opens at 8am, for a ranger had just arrived moments before us to find the gate locked. She was a bit bewildered why the gate wasn't open already, but she unlocked it and we were the third car to stick our payment in the slot and make our way to the main parking area. I guess we weren't the only ones running behind on the holiday weekend. Tens of other cars would arrive while we were getting dressed for the trail.

From the parking lot right next to the Mount Bleak house, the center of the large farm that would become Sky Meadows Park when Paul Mellon donated the land to the Commonwealth of Virginia, we walked due west about a hundred yards towards the Park Office where we picked up the trail. Since I hiked there last, all the trail signage has been redone both with excellent signposts and new blazes: you'd have to work really hard at getting lost here. Starting from the Park Office, we worked clockwise around the boundary of the park, racking up seven of the easiest miles ever by the time we completed the circuit and arrived back at the car.

Starting Signpost

The first part of the trail meandered around a few pastures and a pond before entering very open woodlands. As we walked by the pond, a couple of bullfrogs were calling back and forth in their amusing bellowing voices. The open woodlands clearly suit woodpeckers and are quite famous in this part of the world for a large colony of Red-Headed Woodpeckers of which I saw eleven, none of them close enough to photograph. We were able to hear one make its distinctive "queer" call.

Open Woodlands, Home to Red-Headed Woodpeckers

Massive White Oak, Quercus alba

Working into moister bottomland, we started seeing a lot of giant oaks, black walnuts, and paw paws. As we crossed the entrance road just by the guard house, we found ourselves in a few hundred yards to be walking along with a creek on the left and a pasture on the right. The moist ground was home to several wildflowers that we have not yet seen this year, most of our hiking being at elevation. As we crossed a small bridge and were admiring some green and not yet blooming teasel, I heard the unmistakable call of baby birds from the top of an old apple tree just feet away. We watched long enough to see a Mockingbird fly out, perch on a nearby wire, and fly back.

Now That's a Paw Paw Patch, Asimina triloba

Lots of Black Walnuts, Juglans nigra, in the Lowlands

Squirrel Enjoying a Black Walnut

From here, the trail became a lot narrower and started to climb towards the AT. I need to get on my soapbox for a minute in the 40-year old issue of mountain bikers and hikers sharing the trail. I love hiking. I love mountain biking. I'm the guy that custom-built mountain bikes in 1980 from all kinds of tandem parts and became skilled at downhilling. I'm the guy who blew out his knees in his 20s road cycling in the mountains and who now in his 50s hikes each weekend for exercise and solitude. I get both sides of the issue.

Sky Meadows is a park that sees almost no bikers. Yet as we climbed the twisty single track up towards the AT, a mountain biker with an overloaded pack came charging downhill towards us, not so much aggressively as just in-over-his-head out-of-control, forcing us to jump off the trail.
Coming around the corner near us, he almost crashed, and I can truthfully say I was secretly rooting for that outcome. If you're a minimally skilled mountain biker, how about staying off trails where hikers are not expecting bicycle encounters and where the trail is not wide enough to share?

As we turned south and west on the South Ridge Trail, we started to climb pretty well through the woods. It was in this patch of woods that I found a big bunch of wild black raspberries to pick and Ann wandered on up ahead. And then I got distracted trying to photograph a hummingbird feeding on a patch of Touch-Me-Nots, Impatiens capensis. From there I double-timed it to catch up with Ann and soon enough, we were high enough to start having some views such as that below.

South Ridge Trail: Looking North at Paris VA

Finally up on the ridge line, we turned north on the AT after chatting for a moment with a couple sitting on the bench at the intersection of the two trails. The woman is a customer of mine at the restaurant and she was at the restaurant the evening before. She wanted to introduce her date to me at dinner but I was super busy and by the time I got to the dining room, they had moved on. How crazy and coincidental that we should meet them the following day in the middle of the woods?

After a brief walk through the woods on the AT, the trail opened up crossing a gas pipeline and then ran through a series of balds. A short while later, the AT forked left and we continued right on the Ambassador Whitehouse trail, heading back down the mountain.

Stile on the AT

A Bald on the Ambassador Whitehouse Trail

In the photo below, you can just start to see some of the vast fields of wildflowers that dot the landscape at Sky Meadows. The flowers are a mix of Brown-Eyed Susans, Sunflowers/Jerusalem Artichokes, Wild Bergamot, Butterfly Weed, and Purple Coneflowers. The weather was perfect for walking through all these fields being overcast and unusually comfortable for the third of July. Before the hike, I was worried about being exposed to the sun for long periods in July, but it turns out that I needn't have worried.

Crossing Another Bald Just off the AT

The big payoff aside from the fields of wildflowers is the views of the valley from Paris to Delaplane from the Piedmont Overlook. From the overlook, it is a straight shot down the hill to the parking lot to complete the circuit.

Piedmont Overlook: Cobbler Mountains Looking Southeast

Piedmont Overlook: Looking East

Mints. I saw more mints on this hike than I can remember seeing on any other hike. I shouldn't be surprised though. I can recall bushwhacking through Sky Meadows and smelling crushed spearmint underfoot, no doubt a remnant of past farm life here.

Looks Like Catnip, Nepeta cataria

Motherwort, Leonurus cardiaca

Wild Basil, Clinopodium vulgare

Common Self-Heal, Prunella vulgaris

Common Germander, Teucrium canadense

Another Mint, Probably a Wild Basil

Pasture Flowers. The abundant pastures from the old farm and the wide open balds are home to dozens of flowers that require full sun. I know from past experience here that in the fall, the fields will be golden with all manner of sunflowers. For now, I can see that they are about 18" high but for the most part, there are no blooms.

St. John's Wort, Hypericum sp.

Horse Nettle, Solanum carolinense

White Campion, Silene latifolia

Common Sow Thistle, Sonchus oleraceus

Bull Thistle (Note White Crab Spider)

Stunning Bull Thistle Bud, Cirsium vulgare

Viper's Bugloss, Echium vulgare

Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, in Full Splendor

A Hawkweed, Hieracium sp.

A Teasel, Dipsacus sp.

Moth Mullein, Verbascum blattaria

Butter-and-Eggs, Linaria vulgaris

Deptford Pink, Dianthus armeria

A Brassica of the Sort We Call Field Cress

,A Much Despised Invasive Vine, Persicaria perfoliata

Cut Leaf Geranium, Geranium dissectum

Indian Hemp, Apocynum cannabinum

Berries. The berry crop is huge this year and ripe berries are starting to become abundant. The pastures are loaded with masses of unripe blackberries, but we were able to pick many wineberries and black raspberries. Ann got to taste her first wineberry. I used to grow them. They're prickly for sure but they ripen even in the shade and they're delicious.

Ann Tasted Her First Wineberry, Rubus phoenicolasius 

The Black Raspberries, Rubus occidentalis, Taste Wonderful

Wildflower Fields. Sky Meadows is known for its vast fields of wildflowers, no doubt seeded at one point and not necessarily totally wild, witness the Echinacea purpurea, the Purple Coneflower, a native of the western plains.

Echinacea, Rudbeckia, and Common Mullein

A Sunflower of Some Sort

Butterfly Weed, Asclepias tuberosa

Chicory, Cichorium intybus

Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa

Black-Eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirsuta

Another Sunflower

Woodland Flowers. I'm still impressed by the number of flowers blooming under the trees. They can be difficult to photograph in the dim light without a tripod. In many places the trail was lined with Enchanter's Nightshade, Circaea lutetiana, and I even saw a few Longleaf Summer Bluets, Houstonia longifolia, in bloom.

Thimbleweed, Anemone virginiana

Elderberry, Sambucus canadensis, Blooming on Wood Edges

Black Cohosh, Actaea racemosa

Fringed Loosestrife, Lysimachia ciliate

Wetland Flowers. The damp areas along the creeks are home to several flowers that we haven't seen elsewhere on our hikes.

Seedbox Seed Pods, Ludwigia alternifolia

Square-Stemmed Monkey Flower, Mimulus ringens

Touch-Me-Not, Impatiens capensis

Miscellaneous Creatures. As we were coming back down the mountain on the Piedmont Overlook Trail, we came across this lethargic Black Rat Snake which kindly posed for lots of pictures.

Black Rat Snake

Not so easy to photograph was this baby Cedar Waxwing whose face was being stuffed by an adult. I managed to rip off six frames in about two seconds and this is the best of them.

Baby Cedar Waxwing

The fields are perfect Goldfinch habitat and now that the thistle seeds are ripening and the finches all have lots of babies to feed, there were hundreds of finches all over.

Male Goldfinch Feeding on Thistle

Sky Meadows is always a delight. The walking is easy and the habitats are varied, leading to interesting encounters with both flora and fauna. I could only wish that it were a less popular park. By the afternoon, the place was crawling with lots of families with kids and animals. Such is the downside of a readily accessible park with easy trails.