Friday, December 22nd
E walked over to H’s house this morning. She’s tending to Houdini the cat while H and T are in Portland for a few days. Her route led her past Garfield Park.
Sunday, December 24th
We had a great meal on Christmas Eve, courtesy of BJEM Enterprises, a (very) local catering cooperative. We started with a couple of black cod salad dock boxes from Local Ocean. The boxes provided baby kale, acorn squash, cauliflower, pepitas, green onions, parsley and white balsamic vinegar, plus four pieces of cod. While B tossed and plated the salad portions, M pan seared the fish. J assisted with plating and sliced up a loaf of olive bread that she had baked for the occasion.
For dessert, E provided a baked Alaska and talked M into flambeing it, thus transforming it into bombe Alaska.
Christmas Day
Tuesday, December 26th
The day after Christmas was damp and foggy. In the morning we went up to Basket Slough, planning to walk through the wildlife refuge there. It turns out, though, that at this time of year, only wildlife are allowed into the main area. No humans.
In Salem we went back to Minto-Brown Island Park, located along the south bank of the Willamette just west of downtown. The park covers 1200 low lying acres, an area that was once a Kalapuyan trading center and later became home to a large lumber mill and a number of farms. The park is named for two early immigrant landowners: John Minto and Isaac “Whiskey” Brown . Minto was a prominent sheep farmer and a long-time state legislator. Brown was not. Today much of the area has been restored and only a few traces of its history remain.
Thursday, December 28th
E has been enjoying her social life with various animals. Yesterday she had a delightful walk with her canine friend, Asher, in an oak savannah park on the outskirts of town. Asher even surprised E with a luscious bag of Lindt chocolate balls! He clearly knows her taste.
This morning she paid a visit to Houdini the cat. He grumbled that she was late in serving breakfast, but after eating he purred and rubbed against E’s leg before settling down for a rest on the heated floor of the bathroom. What a life!
I wanted to see a picture of the Flaming Naked Alaska!!!!
Dear S, Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately, a photo of Flaming Naked Alaska would be a violation of our community standards. That’s too bad; we’d like to see it too.
–Michael
Sounds like a lot more dun than my week, particularly in the food department!
ok so you taught this forester something today. i smiled when i read about “organic” syrup..thinking the gifter was rooked out of a few bucks to call it organic because how would maple syrup NOT be organic?
so, i went on a search. Now…remember..syrup production was a huge part of my studies and i worked at the sugarbush through my spring breaks. Its a big product of NY…and i had never heard of it NOT being organic.
What i found says…to be organic the producer has to maintain biodiversity..keep blowdown for wildlife, etc. Can’t cut every species but sugar maple. Now, I know a LOT of maple producers, and not one of them would think of doing such a thing as cutting everything else out…but apprently, somewhere, someone does that.
pretty interesting to me!! Thanks for making me think!!