A Visit from Julie and Guillaume

Sara's friend from college Julie and her partner Guillaume stayed with us for a few days just now. Amazing. They built a bike frame, using carbon fiber that can be disassembled and taken on airplanes. They rode from central France to Barcelona, flew to LA, and are biking up to Oregon. They have a neat website for their trip. Julie commented that she felt like Sara and I were her grandparents trying to fatten her up... We had meatballs and steamed potatoes and a cabbage salad the first night, masa quesadillas and beans the second, and vietnamese (beef, rice noodles, salad from the garden) the third. Photos from my camera:

action shot, shutter lag as Guillaume rode by

their trusty steed

our trusty steeds

closer-up of the front wheel drive front end

Artwork of their bike that Julie made, for a lampshade for Sara. I have northwest coast art all over my walls, so she added some design elements to her painting. Really clever and lovely...

the blue salad bowl has korean mint, 'santo' cilantro, and some spearmint

Massaged kale salad, a lovely food discovery. this one was red kale + salt/fish sauce/olive oil that marinated together for a while, and then more spearmint and a cuke at the end.

the plate

Julie and Sara made the lemon bars from the Tartine pastry cookbook the last night

more Recent Dinners

Mac and cheese w/ a bechemel made with goat milk. the first and last time I'll buy goat milk, cause now I have a hook-up. SWEET.
Spaghetti and meatballs w/ chevre from the lady who has goats.
Leftovers. Poor us. Erin's ice cream, strawberries, stewed rhubarb.

Salmon

Farmed salmon has reached a new low for me. It drove down the prices that fisherman get for the real fish, putting families in financial trouble. It pollutes the ocean near fish farms. It isn't as healthy -- they have to add food coloring to get the nice orange/red color that wild salmon get from eating crustaceans. When it was introduced it sold for ~3$/lb, a little less than half the cost of wild salmon. This week Albertsons has wild sockeye for 10$/lb, Vons has farmed atlantic for 8$/lb. Disgusting.

new Bon Iver

pretty damn good. Streaming on NPR music.

Recent Dinners

Haven't posted in a while as I was busy finishing up the dissertation and Sara was busy with her orals and other stuff. Lots of stress in the household.... We're all clear now, though.

cutie w/ some of the finer things

sauteed rutabaga with broccoli shoots steaming on top

The final dish, rutabaga, grassfed beef bratwurst, broc, this was really really good. I'm loving rutabaga.

This was interesting. Potatoes simmered in goat milk + crushed green corriander seeds. Served with cilantro and kale and some pickled veggies that the Lerner gave us.

deep dish quiche from last night

Erin made earl grey ice cream. So good, and really good with stewed rhubarb

Accordions / NPR

Cool story, the intro is solid gold.

E Coli in Germany

These stories piss me off. It seems like the initial blame is always placed on something organic. It's happened before with spinach, for instance. So when the story broke the initial culprit was said to be organic cucumbers from Spain. But no one in Spain got sick, it was only people in Hamburg or who had produce distributed from the Hamburg produce distribution hub. Hmmm, sounds like the problem is in Germany... and not with organics.