Moroccan Night

Apparently for the time being this is going to morph into a food blog. I used to do posts about MY cooking ages ago but now we are talking about Billy's skills in the kitchen. I am not much for following recipes. I usually fly by the seat of my pants and make stuff up. Sometimes it turns out great and sometimes it does not. I love to cook but I have too much of a distracted, scatter brain to do the recipe thing very often. Billy on the other hand is not a distracted scatter brain by any stretch of the imagination. He is a calm, collected, focused brain. A rare gem in this world. Anyway... let us move on from talk of brains and get to the edibles. Tonight Chef Mclane whipped up a chick pea tagine found in this past months Vegetarian Times magazine. He added a fresh minted yogurt sauce and let me tell ya it was mighty fine. You may be asking yourself "What the Hell is a tagine?" Tagines are cooking vessels commonly used in North African countries like Morocco and Algeria. It consists of two pieces - a plate like bottom and a conical shaped lid. The bottom doubles as a serving dish, which comes in handy for nomads (like us.) Heat is retained for hours in a tagine, which is used on the stovetop in kitchens. Too bad we don't actually own a real tagine. They are pretty cool looking and some can be really ornate, like this one...



You can easily complete tagine recipes on the stove top without using an actual vessel. Which is what Billy did. We had a dessert tonight of broiled grapefruit with honey, vanilla and cardamom. It was my fist ever hot grapefruit experience. It was quite good... being all at once sweet, sour and pungent with the addition of the cardamom spice. Here's a pic...



Yes... I know that it looks like a burnt grapefruit. But trust me... it was so much more than that.

We have started to develop an addiction to the store Sur La Table which there is a retail shop for in downtown Carmel. I convince myself that I need all kinds of stuff while in there. Like this fabulous copper fleur de lis cookie cutter.




Or this cast iron $119 Le Creuset skillet that weighs so much you can barely lift it. This thing will still be around when all of us are dead and gone. We have refrained from buying too much so far but we do go in there regularly and drool over the goods and the cooking possibilities they would afford us.



I did grab this cute notepad for Billy while I was poking around at Anthropologie last night. It is a weekly menu planner. He can jot down his grocery list on the back of it for when we do our shopping. It has a magnet on the back so you can stick it on your fridge door. Fun!

Chef McLane

People.... that which you see above is what I dined on this evening. Homemade, from scratch, sweet potato gnocchi in a brown butter sauce with flash fried fresh sage leaves. The salad was arugula, spinach pomegranate seeds and candied walnuts. Talk about good eatin'! Billy has been rocking out in the kitchen for the past few weeks. I have been meaning to post about it and have only just now gotten around to it. Mostly because I have been rolling around like an egg on the bed after dinner with my full stomach every night for three weeks. He has made beet and asparagus sushi, roasted vegetable tostadas, spinach and zucchini soup and a bunch of other fabulous stuff. I am getting spoiled rotten. It's heaven.

Today ended my three days in a row off work. I went for a hair cut, here are the results (don't expect to be blown away because my hair cuts are always boring).......



After the cut we all three went down to Carmel Beach. It was a really pretty, foggy afternoon. Quite a change from the past few 80 degree days. It was straight up cold. But I like days like this and Carmel dishes out a lot of them. We sat on the sand, drank coffee and watched the waves crashing while Rudy did his usual stuff like peeing on seaweed, eating seaweed, running with seaweed and digging holes.

Here is a shot of Chef McLane enjoying his java....



How funny is that? It's like an ad for coffee. He is really selling it. Coffee is delicious and makes you happy. Billy is living proof.

So, I can't believe that it is almost "holiday time." I really can't seem to get with the idea of it. Every time I see a Christmas decoration up somewhere I think... "What the Hell is that doing there?" I am still in pumpkin mode. I could pretty happily stay in pumpkin mode year round I think. Anyway... we are not traveling to be with family this year for either Thanksgiving or Christmas so it will be pretty low key here for us. I am hoping that we can do something goofy on Christmas Day like go to Big Sur and watch sea otters or climb a (small) mountain or something. We are trying to plan our T Day dinner which of course is fully vegetarian. We have been trying not to eat so much soy based stuff so I think we may bust out and make this mushroom, faro phyllo dough, strata, pie thingamabobber we found in a Gourmet magazine to replace the tofu turkey. It looks like it will be nearly impossible to make but what the hey... if you are going to spend an entire day focused on one meal as an event you may as well go for it on every level.

I have been trying to find time to get my Etsy shop updated and get new stuff listed. My efforts have produced one, yes one, new listing which is a vintage Gianni Versace dress fom the 80's. It has shoulders pads big enough to scare Paul Bunyon off the dance floor. Hmmm. I am pretty sure I am the only person to have ever typed that particular sentence. And I may also be the only person who has ever ignited the visual of Paul Bunyon on a dance floor in to anyone's mind. I am sure that Mr. Bunyon would have enjoyed this fuschia pink mini dress and would have gladly purchased it for his gal to wear on a hot date on Saturday night in the Northern woodlands where he and she resided. Yes. I will end with that.

In closing here is a shot of Rudy and I chillin' under one of the beautiful cypress trees on the beach here in Carmel. Have a great Wednesday folks.

Quickie

I am headed to bed but thought I would throw a few photos from our past few days down on Carmel Beach up here for everyone to see. We have had a fabulous weekend of close to 80 degree weather and I was off work both Friday and today so we hit the beach for some sun and to let the canine run free. There were more dogs on the beach today than I have ever seen down there. It was insane with dogs. I thought Rudy would come unglued but oddly enough he stayed by our side for the most part and was pretty mellow. I think most all of the dogs out there were getting their minds blown by the sheer number of living beings moving about on the sand. Rudy did pair up with a few fellow pooches to peel out on the shore though.... here are the best shots.







That basset hound is so goofy looking I can barely even stand it. I love him. I mean this in the best possible way... that is a face that truly says "DUHHHH." And look at the size of his feet! WTH?

My sympathy goes out to all of you who are hunkering down in to winter weather as I write this. I am sure that the party will be over for us here soon as well. No snow of course.... but cold, wet, windy weather is well on it's way.

Off to bed!

I Suck

Yeah. How long has it been since I posted? The real question is more like this... "How long has it been since I have experienced anything worth posting?" And the answer would be... An eternity my friends, an eternity.

What news? Oh! I work at a job.... in an art gallery, in Carmel by the Sea, CA. Suddenly and from out of nowhere this is what I am doing!? It has been quite an adjustment in a variety of ways. Let me list these ways off to you now...

1. I have to get up with an alarm clock at 7:30 a.m. (this is the stuff of nightmares)
2. I have to get dressed in clean clothes and put on mascara and lip stick and whatnot
3. I have to actually GO to said job and be present for an 8 hour shift!
4. Having a job costs money... you have to feed yourself away from home and buy tights to wear under skirts and stuff
5. This leaves Billy and Rudy home alone for 9 hours out of the day and that is a dangerous amount of time for them to be left alone
6. There is a chocolate shop next door to my gallery
7. There is an Anthropologie store less than two blocks away from my gallery
8. I am sure there are more things to say but I am too tired thinking about having to get up tomorrow for my job

So there you have it. And let me tell you... I may sound like I am complainin' (and I most certainly am) but I am glad to have this gig. It's payin' for some real important stuff for us right now... stuff like air to breath and water to drink.... and Rudy's brain surgery. And sooner or later a haircut for Billy. So it's all good people. Really.

Also... you should know that I am sort of two timing on Billy right now. I kind of have a new man in my life and his name is Wrecks. He lives next door. I go over there sometimes at night and make out with him on the sofa. Here is a photo I took of him on our date the other night...



Billy really does not seem to mind. He is not the jealous type. So it's cool. Rudy does have an issue with it though since Wrecks is his friend and I think he is sort of embarrassed by the whole thing. I think he is still depressed because his girlfriend recently moved away. Her name is Cheyenne and she was his favorite lady. Truly.





Cheyenne moved up to Oregon. We hope she likes it up there and finds a new buddy to hang out with who is as much fun as Rudy. If you call someone chewing and hanging off your ear fun that is.

OK! Time to go crawl into bed with my new Jim Harrison book and read until the cows come home.

A New Blog to Follow

Hi all... just a quickie here. I had a comment on a previous post from a guy who was excited to find the jaunlet map widget we use here on this blog to chronicle his own upcoming trip. He and his wife are about to embark upon what looks to be about a three month trip through Asia and parts of Africa. I am anxious to follow their journey so I thought I would share the link in case anyone else might like to take a look as well. They start out a week from today. Here is the LINK to Si and Liz's blog. I wish them the best of luck, safe travels and to have an amazing experience!

Big Changes

Howdy doodies. So this past week has been a bit of a whirlwind. I landed a job as an art consultant at a gallery downtown in Carmel and started a few days ago. Quite a switch up from our original plans of camp hosting in Big Sur. There have been some wardrobe issues mainly due to the fact that Patagonia wind pants are not exactly the right apparel for selling oil paintings. At least not at this particular gallery they are not. And congratulations to you if you work in a gallery where wind pants ARE appropriate. I want to know where that gallery is and plan my future around it. I am much better equipped to work at the wind pants gallery than at the grown up lady clothes galleries of the world.

Anyway... I am a working thug again. Back in the saddle as they say. I love being in downtown Carmel and when I get off work I can walk down to the beach in less than 5 minutes which is fantastic. Although... the party will be over as of November second when the time change occurs and we all have to deal with it getting dark at 2 in the afternoon for the next 5 months.

I am working a big opening event for a watercolor artist this Saturday and plan to shoot some photos that day. I will be sure to post some up here for all to see. Until then.... I have today and tomorrow off and am hoping to get to see my good friend Bernadette who is visiting California from out East for the next few days. Bernadette was my saviour when I first moved out to Nantucket in 2000. She gave me a job, fed me, helped me cope with the enormity of the disaster that my life was at that moment in time and introduced me to all the island's characters. I have not seen her in several years and hope we can swing a visit today or tomorrow before I have to head back to work for the weekend.

Also.... I started up another blog to chronicle the days and nights of DOG in Carmel. It's the most dog friendly city in the universe you know. You can see this new blog at www.dogsbythesea.blogspot.com.

Sunday Morning

***YAAAWWWWNNNNN***** Hey y'all. How goes it for everyone out there in the world on this chilly Sunday morning? I just crawled out of bed and I am trying to get warm and wake up. At this moment those are my biggest plans for the day beside this post. Hopefully once the "waking up" portion of the plan has been realized I will be able to expand upon my possibilities.

I am still taking my thyroid meds. I am convinced that they are causing me to feel like there is a huge lump forming in the back of my throat sort of like the feeling you get when you are about to start crying. Sooo, that means what? That my thyroid is swollen? That I am loosing my mind? That I am on the brink of anaphalactic shock? I am calling my doctor tomorrow to discuss the full range of probable answers. I don't trust this stuff.

The little campground (Saddle Mountain RV Resort) where we are living is really hopping this weekend. Even the tent sites are full and it has been getting petty chilly at night for tent camping. I am glad to see people up there though because these are some of the coolest tent sites you could hope for on a camping trip. There is a trail that switchbacks up the side of the mountain the tent sites are scattered along and then eventually the trail just keeps on by itself all the way up to the top. We have yet to go all the way to the tippy toe top of the mountain because we always seem to head up that way at dusk and don't have time to make it back up and down before dark falls. The trail winds through some really gorgeous woods... I love these woods and man are they photogenic. You wind in and out of old oak groves and really eerily serene stands of pine. Here are a few shots I took last night while out on a walk at dusk.






Beautiful right? The next time we go up I will get a few shots of the view looking out over Carmel Valley. You can see all the way to the ocean on a clear day. I love that we have this walk right out our front door. It's a good work out too.... steep all the way up.

Huh? Wha?

Yeah. I am feelin' kind of spaced out and thinkie all at the same time. Anybody else ever feel like this? It's a weird way to be feeling. I don't know if I mentioned it at all in the past few weeks but I got all adult like and found myself a real live doctor here in Carmel and went in even though there was nothing acutely wrong with me and got a real live check up. They ran a full panel of blood tests and I went in yesterday to get the results. As it turns out I seem to have hypothyroidism. This does not surprise me all that much seeing as how I have been feeling really tired for ooohhhhhh, about the past 24 years. So today I started on meds to combat this problem. The meds are coming from a source that makes my brains turn inside out with disgust and horror but the alternative is a synthetic med that research shows to not be as effective in treating this particular problem. The pills I am taking are made of ground up pig thyroid. B-A-R-F. It makes me feel like I have a tennis ball made of pure dread stuck in my throat to think about it. But I dutifully swallowed down my pig gut pill this morning anyway. I guess it takes weeks and weeks for any results to be felt in the course of taking these pills (they actually call them "grains". ) And I may have to take them for the rest of my life. It's like the old questions... how many grains of sand in the desert? Except mine will be... how many grains of pig thyroid choking my soul? Whatever. If I feel like I can leap buildings in a single bound without needing a nappie afterward 6 weeks from now I guess it will all be worth it.

The doc also gave me some samples of tryptophan to help me sleep at night. I have been battling insomnia for a few weeks (months, years) on and off. I took two (even though I was told to take three) last night and THAT is not happening again. I was still slurring and teetering around at 1 o'clock this afternoon like 14 hours after I had taken the things. Just bizarre. I will continue to fly the night skies on my own weird personal ride of wakeful sleeping in lieu of a stupefying tryptophan slow boat to nowhere. I still woke up for about three hours of doped out sleeplessness last night... so they really did me no good whatsoever. Any one else out there had a different experience with these? Do tell!

Other than all this B.S. that is totally boring and self indulgent for me to be writing about... not a whole lotta lotta is going on. We took Rudy down to Dog City by the Sea Beach today and he ran his fannie off with numerous glamorous Carmel pooches. We forgot the camera this time so I have no evidence. Also... Rudy almost pooped in a coffee shop. It was sort of an accident. A poop emergency that snuck up on him. It wasn't like he was maliciously pooping to ruin any one's day. I was paying at the counter and Billy was trying to get coffee over at the self service counter and suddenly Rudy was twisting and curling around on the floor mat trying to deal with a rogue dingleberry that had emerged secretly from his derriere. Billy (thankfully) realized what was playing out and abandoned his coffee errand to whisk Rudy out on to the sidewalk to extricate the nugget. Are you not glad that I share these gems of info with you all?

So there you have it. Have a lovely Tuesday night folks.

A Little Break from Reality

This was made by Billy's friend Brian in NYC... Brian is a gem.

A Whole New Plan

Okay! So.... last I told you we were possibly going to head down the Big Sur Coast to Limekiln State Park for our camp hosting gig. AAAAannnndddd a day or so after that we found out the whole area was on fire. Still IS on fire actually. The planet is still working on itself in this neck of the woods.... working out the kinks, giving itself an extreme make over. It can't be bothered with a couple of geeks like us. So... once again we had to start thinking about a different plan. We spent a few extra days at Big Sur Campground where the nice folks who own the place offered us a chance to stay and work there for the coming season or two. We considered it but ended up not signing on because they needed rock solid workers through til next Fall and needed more hours than we were willing to commit to with our own businesses and the attention they require. They were great people and we wish them the best of luck in this upcoming rainy season! They have a lot of work to do to get the campground ready for possible flooding in the Big Sur River.

Also... we have to send a shout out to Betty Le at Pfeiffer. She is the ranger we worked with down there and is a super cool person. We shall return Betty. In a time when Big Sur is not heaving like a pissed off grizzly bear.

I got a bunch of neat pics on one of our last days in Big Sur while out tide pooling. This one is a great shot of a sea urchin... what a beauty. Click through to see it big, it's worth it.




So now we have returned back up to Carmel. We really love it here and may just stick put here for the winter. There really are not any state park camp hosting jobs turning up in locations we are interested in spending the winter so since this is one of our fave spots we may as well just hang out. And if we give Rudy a choice... he would pick Carmel over just about any place in the whole country. So there you have it. But don't hold your breath or count on anything. Our plans have changed 19 times in the past three weeks so anything could still happen.

Billy suffered through some serious finger pinching for me to get these two shots...





Rudy is glad as Hell to be back in Carmel. This is Dog City. We went down to the beach this afternoon and he celebrated his return with a few new friends...

I like to call the first two "Runs with Seaweed" and then "Dances with Wolf Hounds."





It is so great to be able to let him hang out and play with all these other dogs. He is crazy for it.

Right now I am in the midst of a cookie baking marathon. I have one small cookie sheet and a crap load of dough to bake off. It is an enormous waste of propane but it's happening. Tomorrow I am feeding this campground cookies. Unless Billy eats them all tonight.