We Couldn't Pass Up The Pool

We went to the Stalnaker's for dinner last night, they put in a pool for their grandkids, who were there, and Cy and I enjoyed it quite a bit too.  Anyway's, Cy felt like taking an easy three day weekend, so he dished up some hot dogs for us.  They were good, but we were forced to resort to Hebrew National dogs because Otto's was closed for the holiday weekend.

Solar Eclipse; a Fingernail in the Sky

The Solar Eclipse

     After the past few weeks, the rain picked the worst possible day to return.  While any day would have been bad, there's a partial lunar eclipse in Portland today, and an annular eclipse farther south.  Much to everyone's disappointment, the sky is a uniform gray, preventing any chance of our seeing the eclipse.  I opted to go for something simple on the grill tonight, hoping that it would give me more time to view the eclipse.  Alas, 20 minutes from the time of maximum eclipse, I can find the suns position as easily as I could find the North Pole--without a compass, in a row boat.  It looks like we'll have to wait until 2017 for another solar eclipse, though that will be a total eclipse.

     For now, the light's just a little strange, and our burgers are on the grill.  I've sliced up red onions and pickles, so now we're ready for dinner.  It would appear that the food will not be eclipsed by the eclipse tonight, though it would appear that the cloud cover is thinning.  Maybe, in twenty minutes the cloud cover will have dissipated.  Now, 5 minutes from maximum eclipse, the world outside is visibly darker.  With two minutes to go, we were all outside, staring (when Mom and Mimi weren't telling we'd burn our retinas out) at the sun.  Even with the heavy cloud cover, you could see the moon drifting across the sun.  Leaving a fingernail of bright sun.  The light is coming back, but it's still very spooky, like dusk or dawn.  But like neither at the same time, and like all at once.


     The burgers were very good, part of the advantage of being the first burgers of the season.  The eclipse was amazing, though no better than one of the numerous lunar eclipses we've had over the past couple years.  With the burgers we had sides of tater-tots and coleslaw, neither of which we're supremely memorable, though they both went well with the burgers.

Summer-Time: WHAM!

     For Mother's Day, Cy, Mom, Mimi and I went down to Corvallis to see our cousins.  The moms went out to lunch, and us kids built a great big bonfire out of, among other things, some old chairs.  We got back to Portland a little before 5, and Mimi had me drive her out to her house to get Maggy.  By the time we got back, dinner was ready.

     Dad stayed in Portland, and in the early afternoon our neighbor, Dennis, came over to give us some of the fish he had caught that morning.  So Dad cooked that up for us, and we came home to grilled salmon.  It was really good.  We ate al fresco, it got up to 93º today, hotter than it got almost all last summer.

     Now we're working on dessert,we've got some leftover strawberry bombe from last night, and Dad is hulling strawberries to go with it.  I know it's kind of an old, overused adage for this blog, but summer is here.  Not spring pretending to be summer, real summer.  Hide in your basement with a big cold glass of lemonade summer.

    Also, I got hired to lifeguard at the local pool this summer.

Dining Outside At Last

BACON!!!

     Today was warm and sunny.  We went for a walk this morning at Lewis and Clark College (I drove). Turns out it has a beautiful, giant, campus. We then went home and worked in the yard.  For dinner, Cy has made us BLT's, and his famous Majiggy Fruit Salad.  And he's made us strawberry coolers to drink.  Should be good, we've got ice cream for dessert and we'll be eating outside for the first time this year.

     The BLT's were good, and we had some extra bacon.  The Majiggy fruit salad, which Cy got published in Cooking Light magazine five years ago, was as good as ever.  The strawberry coolers were good, but nothing special.  The bottom of the pitcher is covered in strawberry seeds.  It was a good meal to open the outdoor eating season, and a great night to do it.

Pizza, and the Perfect Lemonade Part II

     Memaw is in town this weekend, last night we went out to dinner at Tasty & Sons and this morning we went to The Pearl Bakery downtown.  Just to make things exciting for everybody, I drove both ways both times.  Then, to keep the anxiety crank turned full-force on Dad, I opted to make pizza on the grill.  We're going to have three kinds pizzas, a sorpressata pizza, a roasted beet pizza, and a leek and gorgonzola pizza.  We'll have an asparagus side-dish, and to drink I've made the basil lemonade that I made a few weeks back.  This time though, I've added an additional twist, making it strawberry basil lemonade.  Should be good.

     Once the coals are ready, it's going to be go, go, go to get everything done around the same time.  Right now Dad and I are doing a mís-en-place with all the pizza toppings.  Once the coals are ready we'll take the pizza dough, currently spread out on three sheets of parchment paper on the kitchen counter, and flip them on to the grill.  Once they've cooked a little bit, we'll flip them back over and add the toppings.



     That was really good.  We could have used about twice as much strawberry-basil lemonade, and I got some good ideas to improve it next time.  (Summer mission: create the perfect lemonade.)  The pizzas were very good as well, the sorpressata was a good, classic, american pie.  The leek was both light and airy, and thick and cheesy from the gorgonzola.  The roasted beet pie was sweet and salty, the honey and beets were beautifully offset by a sprinkling off salt applied to the top.  The asparagus, off course, was catalonian style, super greasy.  I've got to run, Cyrus has found a movie with Michael Hazanavicius, of The Artist, that Netflix describes as "The French answer to James Bond."  I suspect it will be good.  And we have a bowl of rhubarb crisp leftover from Friday waiting for me.

Next Week

     Today was almost hotter than it got all last summer, and no matter how much I would have liked to set up something on the grill tonight, it just wasn't going to happen.  I spent all day at my lifeguard class, (I'm fully certified now) and I didn't get home until it was far to late to start dinner.  Instead, we went out for Ethiopian food and some ice cream to celebrate Mimi and Cyrus' birthdays.  Hopefully it will be this nice next week, and I'll be able to break out the grill.

Return to Ribs

     It's been a heck of weekend for me, the past two days I've been up at 6 to go out to the East Portland Community Center, where I've been training to Lifeguard this summer.  By the time I got home today, around half past four, Dad and Cy had already fired up the grill, and put our dinner on it.  When I climbed out of the car, I could smell the smoke and the ribs.  They were excellent ribs.  It was a little hard to get the meat off the bone, but all the work was made up for in flavor and and the shear joy of getting your face covered in barbeque sauce.  We had watermelon for a sort of at-the-table dessert, it was a little out of season but still good.  And, the water helped to clean off our faces.  Now, we've got a real dessert, chocolate ice cream with hot fudge and bananas.
     There's something new about this blog post, one of my birthday presents was an amazing new camera, a Canon EOS Rebel T3i.  Of course, it did show up until earlier this week, so this is our first chance to use it.
  Below is a picture that has nothing to do with the food but thought it was worth sharing to show off the new camera.