Golden Trumpets

Mushroom hunting season is officially upon us, and last weekend we scored about a metric ton of chanterelles. Whee!

I also found my first-ever cauliflower mushroom. I had never seen one before, but thought it looked like it would be tasty so I picked it and identified it using a book back at the car.

If I look like hell, it's because I was still covered with spider webs and adrenaline sweat from having been nailed by an angry hornet. Tammy spotted the nest first (conveniently located plumb in the middle of the first motherlode patch of the day), but I was too greedy to move from the spot. TANG! right in the forehead, the little fucker came right at me, and I bolted like a clumsy cheetah which actually sucked the bee right into the sleeve of my jacket. The trapped and confused hornet stung me in the armpit, and my shoulder and pec started burning and throbbing. I'm not allergic to bee stings, but I still broke out in a greasy stress-sweat and my heart started racing from all the ado.

But that's all neither here nor there. The important thing is that we scored a shitload of mushrooms in a pleasant 2-hour stroll through a mossy western hemlock forest, and it didn't even rain.

That night I prepared an erratic feast. I made cabernet-braised oxtails; fingerling potatoes sauteed with pancetta, chanterelles and cauliflower mushroom, baby arugula and thyme; and a nice salad of mixed baby greens, toasted hazelnuts, forelle pears and gorgonzola with a fig-balsamic vinaigrette. Yes, it was a strange combination for sure (red wine braise and white wine in the potato-mushroom ragout? Am I CrAzY?), but it tasted pretty good.

Last week I was working in Centralia, Washington, which has a cute little meat market rumored to have elk sausage. I stopped in, but they didn't have any elk yet (boo), so I picked up a coupla German-style fresh sausage and a some rabbits. The bunnies were from Nicky USA (a Portland game and exotic meats purveyor), so I figured it was probably safe.

Last night I prepared the sausages with a hash of baby sweet potatoes, green tomatoes (from the garden) and chanterelles with thyme and a little hit of nutmeg. The sweet potatoes didn't crisp up the way I wanted (they always stick to the pan), but it was still really good. The tartness of the green tomatoes complimented the sweetness of the potatoes, which in turn complimented the earthiness of the mushrooms. And sausage really just compliments everything.

Man, I really need to work on my food photography. Today I joked with Tammy that I should build a little porn studio for my food, like with red velvet curtains and soft lights and all that. The main problem is that by the time I have dinner ready, it's really dark out and since we are doing our part to reduce the CO2 footprint, our lighting is of the compact fluorescent variety. I'll keep working on it.

Tonight I'm going to cook the bunny. I have a vision of a kale and parm-stuffed roulade (sliced into perfect medallions) in a translucent chanterelle broth with some pretty tortellini. I'm not sure if my skills are there yet, but I guess I'll find out.

I Have No Runcible Spoon

But I do have so many quinces that I can't possibly use them all. I implore you to contact me if you want any!

The Quince Tree I Forgot to Mention

I have just come to discover that the "apple" tree in our back yard has been quietly bearing quinces unbeknownst to me. Since this is our first harvest season at the house, I had been scratching my head all summer about the strange fruit that looks like an apple with a pear-like protuberance at the stem, but is covered in scurfy pubescence and has a particularly sepalous blossom end (getting all botanical on yo' ass). I tasted one the other night and was delighted at the fragrant, tart apple-y flavor, but assumed they weren't ripe due to the exceedingly hard flesh. Turns out she was a quince all along. Silly quince!

Tonight I will roast a few and make some quince paste, my favorite accompaniment to manchego. Then I will happily curl my toes and peruse my archives for other recipes. I'm thinking a tarte tatin or a gallette with black cardamom-vanilla syrup. Mmmmm...

...and we're back! Part 2: Engrish and Other Funny

I guess since the last post was 'Part 1' I left myself the responsibility of making another one, even though there's not much else to share except the random Japanese cuteness and Rost in Transrations that provided unlimited entertainment. However, it is Sunday evening, and I have a pot of soup on the stove, so this will smack a bit of half-assedness.

At any rate, here it is.

Delicious $5 sushi in a department store basement, made only hours earlier from fish caught that day. Juxtaposed by...

$30 grapes. I mean, they were tasty, but $30?

"Oh you are, are you?"

Onigiri truly is filled with Mother Love.

A storefront in Akihabara

As if the cuteness of the storefront wasn't enough, here is a random sidewalk, also in Akihabara. I love robots.

Over-Under on Threadless making this a t-shirt design? The sign warns against going into the train tracks to retrieve items, and is one of the coolest I've seen.

Super Potato, where we picked up vintage games that were never released in the US (and will never really be able to play since we can't read Kanji or Katakana, but whatevs). I never really do the peace sign in photos (or ever), but "when in Rome," I guess. I love how my bag matches the entire store.

Oh, Mr. Donut. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

We saw these cigarette girls standing and talking to whom we assume is their boss/pimp, and when I asked "shashin o totte mo i desu ka?" ("may I take a photo?") they looked at each other nervously, then looked at their boss/pimp, and he says to me in English, "yes, it's okay". They instantly switched to "on" and posed for me.

It wasn't the only one I saw, but it was definitely the biggest. And at least it was the outside of the window.

Get crunk. Ice for your grill not included.


This one doesn't really need an explanation, methinks.

Meh, I guess that's it. I'm a bit tired of looking at/explaining all of these photos by now anyway, and I still hafta put together a PowerPoint for work.

...and we're back! Part 1: A Gastronomic Survey

Wow, what a whirlwind. We got home Sunday morning at around 9:00am, and since we'd been tying one on while enduring the 10 hour flight, we saw fit to keep drinking until we fell asleep (oh, don't look at me like that - it was midnight our time). We slept off and on all day, periodically taking breaks from napping to order a pepperoni pizza and hot wings from Rovente's, and then to wander over to the Stone for some Maker's and Diet Cokes with a plate of nachos the size of a toddler. Norman Rockwell's America, it was.

Not that we had been desperately missing western food - I mean, the food in Japan was fucking amazing. Sure, we had a coupla duds (fast food and some bar food failed us - why am I not surprised?), but one place was so great that we even went back a second time on our last night.

Honjin looked like a little hole-in-the-wall from the outside (it was in an alley), but was our first exposure to sitting on the floor, shoes-off dining and to motsunabe - a hotpot of cabbage, scallions, tofu and some grisly nasty bits of chicken. The first night we went (our second night in Tokyo) we were undaunted by the katakana-only menu and simply said, "omakase shimasu" ("we're in your hands").

The guy ended up bringing us 6 different things:

Clockwise from the top:
nankotsu sumibiyaki - charcoal-grilled chicken breast and crunchy cartilage, smoky and delicious.
hakata hitokuti gyoza - we ate this the second time too, but I still don't know what was in that gyoza (anyone translate for me?). The crust on it was incredible.
jidorino tataki - seared rare chicken, in a lime juice and shoyu dressing with red onions, chives, and what I think I identified as shaved fennel. We thought it was duck at first because it was so rare, but no signs of salmonella yet!
"Honjin salad" - not very Japanese-sounding, but it was a salad of julienned daikon, red and yellow bell pepper, and a shoyu-rice vinegar dressing, with a little mizuni greens. Very refreshing.
motsunabe (obscured in photo, but you can see it in the first pic above) - we chose ours with miso broth, and the second time there we realized we could order noodles for slurping up the last of the unctuous broth. I will definitely make this at home.
karashi mentaiko - spicy, pickled, salted cod roe. Very intense. "Maa maa" - not my fave, but Scott liked it (I'd wished I'd had some rice to chase it!).

(apologies for poorly-exposed and attempt-at-fixing photo)

The amuses bouche were a beautiful ceviche baby squid with seaweed and glass noodles in a slightly acidic, sweet and salty dressing, and a little dish of octopus tentacles with masago. The second time we were treated to a simple egg salad with excellent remoulade.

Our second favorite meal was not so much about the food (which consisted of excellent yakitori of duck meatballs and pankoed and fried soft-boiled quail eggs, but bland shabu-shabu) as the atmosphere. It was located in Shibuya, and served as our respite from the harrowing heat and frenetic pace of Tokyo rush hour. We wanted to kill some time before attempting the train ride back to Shimbashi Station, and ducked down into a small place whose name was sadly never established for lack of any Romaji signage.

When we entered, the front counter was occupied by one elderly man in an expensive suit, surrounded by an entourage of middle-aged men in similarly expensive suits, all standing around protectively. As soon as the older man finished his food and stood, they all turned and followed him downstairs. Scott and I of course assumed that they were Yakuza (it was likelier just a boss and his employees, but that's no fun, is it?). The subsequent clientele were all senior citizens who went directly downstairs, where we assumed the non-smoking section must've been located. The old timer behind the grill complimented my Japanese, which was very gratifying.

Another place worth mention is also tragically nameless due our illiteracy in Kanji and Katakana. We had just befriended a Korean traveler over mediocre sushi who reluctantly agreed to come drinking with us, and we found another gorgeous little basement joint where no English but ours' was spoken.

Karam spoke better English than he did Japanese; in fact, I think my Japanese was actually better than his, which I find sort of amusing.

We had only been looking for a place to drink reishu and maybe peck a little, and instead stumbled into a place perhaps a bit out of our league. Never fearing a challenge, we settled in for what ended up being a flight of premium cold sake presented by an apparent sake sommelier. He was an uncanny Japanese doppelganger of Stephen from Top Chef Season 1, which put me and Scott into peals of giggles. The chef and apprentices were prepping for dinner, and our seats at the bar gave us a perfect view of my favorite form of entertainment - the kitchen's ballet.

The clatter of a dropped pan instigated a knee-jerk "otto!" ("oops!") to come rushing out of my mouth, and appalled at what I feared had been glaring disrespect, I looked up in time to see the chef smiling and shaking his head. Phew! Disaster averted. He wasn't offended at all, and in fact treated us to a free sample of the kobe beef he was gracious enough to allow me photograph.

I'm sorry, but the marbling on that masterpiece makes my panties wet. A quick sear was all it took, and slivers of beef that can only come from cows that are massaged daily and fed sake melted on our tongues.

Other foods were photographed but dashed what were perhaps unrealistically high hopes. Okonomiyaki was tasty enough at the time, but looking at the photo now kinda turns my stomach.

Pork and noodles were probably the better choice over seafood, but the cloying barbecue sauce left an icky aftertaste. Many glasses of reishu were required.

Worse, takoyaki wasn't even tasty at the time, and the mere thought of it now makes me puke a little in my mouth.
I was expecting crispy little hush puppy-type dumplings with tender nuggets of octopus, but was instead met with a mushy exterior and an interior of raw batter and tough hunks of cephalopod, all topped with the ubiquitous barbecue sauce, kupie mayo, and bonito shavings that writhed and squirmed as they melted in the steam. We couldn't drink our beers fast enough to overwrite the experience.

These were the notables (and unmentionables) of our culinary adventures in Tokyo. Your mileage may vary.

Oh shit we are in Tokyo!

Scott and I are in Tokyo celebrating our first anniversary. We got here Friday night (Saturday afternoon Tokyo time), and we've already managed to see some pretty cool shit. And our lungs are starting to get used to the heavy air. Here's the morning view from our hotel:


We ate at Tsujiki fish market today, but instead of having sushi (I know, wtf were we thinking?) we ate something that I just can't identify. It was like some fish cake-type texture (probably thickened with rice flour?) like the size of a burrito, and had carrots, shitake mushrooms, ginger and corn in it. It reminded me of that hot pink fish cake that comes in ramen (what is that stuff called?). It also came with some little dumplings on a skewer and a sausage-shaped thing that had either thinly shredded daikon or some noodle in it. And there was also a little pancake of the same texture and vegetable combo.

(We had already eaten some of it before I thought to take a photo)

Kore wa nan desu ka?? I forgot to ask the guy at the stand. Does this look familiar? It was about 1000 yen (~$10) for the little box of all of those things, and it was enough to feed myself and Scott with leftovers to spare. I'd love to know what it is so I can try it again at another joint or try to get a recipe.

Other random neatness:

At first I thought nobody locked up their bikes, but actually they use handy little back-tire locks instead.

A lovely bonsai in the middle of the city at Hama-rikyu Gardens.

Even the manhole covers are pretty (although some emit rank sewer gas).

I think this is a bowl of soup cozying up to a fried prawn. I guess they're probably in love.


This building, perhaps the coolest I've ever seen, looks like a very geometric Antonio Gaudi work. Or a giant game of Jenga.

We're in the room now drinking cheap shoju mixed with pear nectar and watching bad Japanese daytime television. I hafta admit that Japanese television is kinda disappointing. It seems to be mostly infomercials and sports. Dietary aids seem to be very popular.

After the feet rest up a bit and the sweat dries (it is like 90 degrees and 70% humidity), I want to find some good soba. I think there's a place just around the corner from us. Last night we ate in a bar, and had some octopus croquettes, octopus sashimi, gyoza and cranberry-flavored malt liquor beverage. No one there spoke English so we really had to bring our A-game, and I think we did okay. I really want to meet someone to drink with, but we're so not there yet with our language skills.

Update later. Matane!

Paper Chef 25

Wow, I am so excited to enter the world of Paper Chef! (link at Tomatilla! on my sidebar). This friendly little competition among food bloggers is just the type of thing to get me through the busy harvest season and the damp winter that follows. This is how it (usually) works: once a month on a Friday, 3 ingredients are revealed and by the following Wednesday you must incorporate those ingredients into a dish and then blog it. (This will also give me a much-needed kick in the ass to keep my blog current.)

This month's ingredients are: eggplant, chili peppers, smoked swordfish (or other smoked fish if you can't obtain smoked swordfish, or other smoked food if you can't hang with seafood), and this week a fourth ingredient was added: something you already have in your house. This month's theme was "Home."

To me, home-style foods are usually of the soup, chowder, or stew variety. This is also poor folks' food, which is what I grew up eating. As an adult, I've found ways to class-up the food my mom prepared while attempting to make ends meet. I still think the reason Scott proposed to me is that he could taste the home-made chicken stock in my corn chowder (he denies this, but I believe the old adage holds true).

And so, for my inaugural entry into Paper Chef, I present to you:

Smoky Green Curry Seafood Chowder

Ingredients (broken out into steps of prep):
1 medium-sized Asian eggplant*, mandolined or sliced very thin (on the bias)
2 c chopped fresh tomatoes (canned would work in a pinch if drained)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced*
3 small, mild green chilis such as fresh pepperoncini*
1 small onion, diced
1 shallot, minced (about 3 tbsp)
3 or 4 cloves garlic, minced
3" piece of ginger (the younger the better), julienned
1/2 c chopped baby haricots verts (or other tender green bean)

1 tsp coriander seed
1/2 tsp caraway seed
1/2 tsp cumin seed
1/4 tsp garam masala
coupla fat pinches kosher salt
6 or 7 cracks pepper

5 c fumet or fish stock*
3 or 4 squirts fish sauce (nam pla)
1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
1 cup chopped fresh basil (reserve a few sprigs for garnish)
1/2 c chopped fresh cilantro, stems and all (reserve a few sprigs for garnish)
1/2 tsp red chili flake (I like the Korean kind, which is a little sweeter)
juice and zest from half a lime

1 tin (3.66 oz) smoked mussels*, drained
1 lb mild white fish fillets (such as halibut, flounder, tilapia, etc.), cut into bite-sized cubes
8 baby octopus or squid, cleaned, tentacles left whole and bodies cut into bite-sized pieces
12 or 15 medium-sized prawns (~8 oz), peeled and deveined with tails intact

*These are the key ingredients of this week. For the "something you already have", I used fumet (see the "We Went to the Beach and Shit" post for the story of my shitload of fumet).

Heat oven to 350F. Spread thinly-sliced eggplant in a single layer on two lightly-oiled cookie sheets (or on a silpat on top of the cookie sheet). Spread tomatoes into glass or ceramic baking dish in an even layer. Roast eggplant for 15 minutes until browned and a bit crispy. Peel eggplant off while still hot and set aside. Roast toms for an additional 15 minutes (30 minutes total) until slightly browned, sticky and slumpy. You can kick the heat up a bit after the eggplant comes out if you want to expedite this step.

In a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Saute the jalapenos, pepperoncini, onions, shallots, garlic, ginger and haricots verts for 5 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon (important utensil for home cooking). While this is happening, heat a small pan over medium heat and toast the coriander, caraway and cumin seed until fragrant. Remove from heat and grind in mortar and pestle or spice grinder until you get a fine powder. Add ground spices and garam masala to sauteeing veg, and add salt and pepper.

When veg is beginning to get a little golden, add fumet, fish sauce and coconut milk. Drop heat to medium-low and stir. Add basil, coriander, chili flake and the lime zest/juice. Simmer for like 10 minutes. Add the eggplant and tomatoes, smoked mussels and the fish, and simmer another 10 minutes or so, until the veg is al dente and the fish is looking opaque. Avoid stirring too much here so you don't break up the fish. Add the octopus and prawns, and turn off the heat. The latent heat will cook the octopus and prawns without overdoing it.

Ladle into warm bowls and top with sprigs of basil and cilantro (or chop the sprigs up and sprinkle on top). Serve with crusty baguette (not as weird as you'd think; since Vietnam was colonized by the French they learned some nice baking skills from them). Enjoy with a nice Pinot Gris (we have great ones in Oregon), which compliments the seafood and cuts the spiciness.

BTW our fridge died on Monday

So our kitchen crisis continues. The fridge is still dead, the part (a fuse) is on order and maybe we'll be civilized again by NEXT FUCKING TUESDAY.

Wednesday night, while trying to clear shit out for the fridge guy, I managed to stop up the garbage disposal with a quart-sized jar of old pickles and like 2 cups' worth of cooked tuna. I poured a half a can of Red Devil down the drain (that's 100% sodium hydroxide powder) and waited an hour. Still nothing. Go to the store for some Liquid Plumr Caustic Extreme and when we returned both sinks were completely full of vile, hot, half-digested tuna-pickle water (I, being a genius, had run the dishwasher while we ran to the store and it filled the sinks when it drained). So I open the under-sink cupboard and tap the pipes a little, and WHOOSH! they explode drano-tuna-pickle water all over me and the kitchen. I am wearing flip-flops and shorts and hafta sprint to the bathroom for a hazmat-type shower. Every towel in the house ("except our nice ones!!" I scream at the husband) is on the kitchen floor and I am furiously mopping, sobbing and cursing at the top of my lungs until midnight.

Turns out the pipes had been jury-rigged with $3 pvc pipes by the guy who sold us the house, and the inspector had missed it. We had to have the entire under-sink plumbing redone (at a cost of ~$600), and the clog still has not been fixed. The plumber never made the service call for a dude with a snake to come unplug it (I found out this morning when I called to see where the fuck he was already) so we can't even use our sink until tomorrow. I had to wash dishes in the bathtub. May as well have been the fucking Ganges.

So since I had apparently arbitrarily taken the day off work for the plumber who never showed, I had time to completely disassemble the fridge's interior, take everything out back and hose it all down and let it air out in the sun. I scrubbed out the fridge with lavender-scented cleaning product to get the rotten shrimp paste smell out and put a couple of bundles of rosemary and some boxes of baking soda in there.

Then I scrubbed the dried-on tuna-pickle puke out of the sinks (without being able to turn on the water!), swabbed down the counters and swept and mopped the floors and so the kitchen at least looks back to normal. The fridge is still smells a wee bit past-due but at least it doesn't smell like the inside of a coffin.

We went to the beach and shit

Last weekend Scott and I went to the coast for the night. I had been having an uncharacteristic jones for the hubbub of Seaside and its bumper cars, corn dogs, caramel corn and salt water taffy, but we couldn't find a room there and so settled for Astoria. A couple of hours of walking around Seaside and taking in the delicious smells of childhood was enough to sate me, and the crowds made me glad for our reservation in the sleepy history of Astoria.

Our hotel was adjacent to the marina, and if you wanted to spend ~$200/person and 12 hours on a cloudy sea you could partake of a charter fishing trip for tuna, salmon, halibut and/or dungeness crab. Even better, you could just walk down the pier and buy fresh albacore from a dude on his boat for only $1.50/lb. Having had some foresight, we had packed an empty cooler and bought an 18-lb schoolie from the guy.

"You want me to fillet it for you?"

"Nah, I think I can handle it," I say smugly, having seen that one episode of Top Chef where the Quick Fire Challenge was to fillet fish. Why, oh why am I such a macho asshole when it comes to this type of shit? You know damn well I've only filleted one whole fish my entire life - a 1 lb. store-bought tilapia. And I ended up cutting my hand on its dorsal fin in the process.

"I can do this, though", I convinced myself. So with my ever-necessary swig of liquid courage, I took to the porch with my chef's knife in one hand and my steel in the other and set forth to butcher this motherfucker.


Ah, look how the eyes shine and the skin glistens! After hauling this bastard out of the ice, I really wished I had had the dude leave the tail on, for lack of any other handle (it wouldn't fit into the cooler totally intact, alas). I slid it onto the newspaper and began.

I began at the belly, ignorant of the fact that I would destroy the choice belly meat by slicing open the abdomen. I see a shiny pile of wet viscera and am surprised when it doesn't totally gross me out. I slide my bare hands into the cold guts and sweep them out. I decide it will be hilarious if I pile them onto the "escorts" section of the newspaper and have Scott take a photo (my hands were too bloody to snap it myself).



Doesn't that make your dick hard?

I finally get the head off and all the guts out and then the flies and yellowjackets start swarming. I toss the fish back into the ice and wrap up the mess in the newspaper and haul it to the trash.

Flash back to last winter when I am pacing on the porch smoking furiously wondering what the fuck I am going to do with this dead thing I plan to eat.

Google is oddly unhelpful when it comes to tuna butchery. I do, though, know a little about fish anatomy. Tuna, like all vertebrates, are bilaterally symmetrical. This makes things slightly intuitive. But unlike fishes like salmon, they have a cross-shaped bony structure, like their ribs are perpendicular to their spine. So I started at the side where the skin goes from bluish to all-silver, and poked in my fillet knife until I felt bone.

Sliding the knife along the rib line (in stuttered, chopping movements instead of the correct, sleek slicing motion) I get from the head end to the tail. Next I poke in behind the head at the spine and slide my knife along the vertebrae (again, with Michael Meyersian grace) until I have freed the loin. Repeat three times. I have four mangled loins and enough scraps to fill a saucier.

I poached the scraps in olive oil (per Scott's brother's suggestion - he evidently fucked up many a tuna while working for McCormick & Schmick's) for later use. I dumped the skeleton into a stock pot with some mirepoix, bouquet garnis and a sprinkle of peppercorn and fennel seed to make what ended up being about a million gallons of fumet.

Last night's menu:

Seared albacore (rare) w/S&P
Salad of shaved fennel and zucchini, new potato and fresh corn with blood orange/thyme vinaigrette (corn and zucchini from the garden)

Tonight's menu:

Shiru maguro with wasabi and mushrooms
Cold soba with dungeness crab (oh yeah, we bought a coupla those too) scallions, black sesame oil, ginger and miso

The rest has been frozen because I can't stand the smell of fish blood in my kitchen any more. We'll eat the poached stuff on a nice salade nicoise later this week when I'm too lazy to cook after the gym.

Pond Life

Today was the type of day in the field that reminds me of why I went into biology in the first place. It was a dream day. I felt 5 years old again, perfectly amazed that I get paid to plod around ponds and wetlands and see wonderful things.

I conducted my annual mitigation monitoring at Hillsboro Landfill - the most excellent mitigation site I've had in my 5 years in this line of work. A series of ponds and emergent wetlands all seasonally connected to the Tualatin River, laden with great blue herons, Pacific treefrogs, western grebes and all sorts of ducks. The vegetation there is also mostly fantastic - wapato, willows, waterplantain and various spikerushes and sedges all seem to do fine against the reed canarygrass. It really is hard to believe this place is on a landfill property.

So today I was conducting my monitoring (consisting of vegetation transects and quadrats, which will be converted to Daubenmire cover classes). Last year I monitored the site in early October and the ponds had dried up to mud flats. But since I was out early enough this year I got to see my phase of the mitigation still partially ponded. And I had the chance to catch a few minnows and baby catfish!

I caught three baby brown bullhead catfish, one minnow and a dragonfly larva. They are a nice addition to the whiskey barrel pond I made for the deck a week ago.


We named them too - the baby dragonfly is Smaug, the minnow is Ducat and the catfish are Bubb Rubb, Dirty Sanchez and Blumpkin. Yay! We have free pets! And not a moment too soon - mosquito larvae and egg rafts are infesting the wee pond already. Our new pets will clear things up nicely.

LOL

My Garden is an Entomological Wonderland!

Baby praying mantis on pitcher plant.

I Once Was Lost, But Now I'm Found

I'm working in Medford again. On Monday I was hiking a 3-mile stretch of the Rogue River National Forest, when all of a sudden I realized that my coworker was no longer within an earshot of me. I called his phone, but it went directly to voicemail. Great. His phone was either off, out of batteries, or out of range.

How did this happen? He had been on the centerline route, and I was walking the edge of the survey corridor 200 feet off the line. Evidently, instead of going parallel to the slope, I had been slowly veering downhill.

He had the GPS, which was the only compass we had between the two of us, but I had the maps (an aerial photo and a 30-year-old topographic map with no road names). I walked for a bit and found a road.

I was faced with the obvious choice of going right or left. My gut tells me if I go left I'm sure to find the centerline that will lead me directly to my car in like, a quarter mile. I go to the left and after about 500 feet the road completely peters out. Fuck. I know that the exact wrong thing to do is try to find my way through the woods, so I turn around and walk down the road the other way.

I walk for about a half hour (maybe a mile and a half?) and I come to another road. The road has no signs on it, but I see a sign for the road that I had been on that says '200'. Where the fuck am I? I call the office in desperation and ask someone to please grab the Gazetteer and tell me where I am. "I'm somewhere SW of Robinson Butte at a 'T' in the road. The road behind me is '200'. Which road am I facing?" Stacy tells me I'm on Grizzly Creek Road and that if I go left I'll be going toward where I left my car. So I go left. It's about 2:00 pm.

After about an hour and a half (3 or 4 more miles?) there's another T in the road. This time the road is labeled '3730' with a sign that has an arrow pointing left that says 'County Rd 37 4 miles' and an arrow pointing right that says 'S Fk Little Butte Ck Rd 5 miles'. I call the office again. This time I talk to Shane, who grew up about 15 miles from here. He tells me "3730 is South Fork Little Butte Creek road." This does not help me. I tell him, "okay, I am heading in what I believe to be a westerly direction, toward South Fork Little Butte Creek Road". By now it was about 4 in the afternoon and I figured the sun was pointing west, and based where I thought I was on the map I figured I had about another 3 or 4 miles before I'd get to the road my car was on. I took a right.

Two hours later I am still walking down 3730 when I get my first clue as to where on earth I actually am. I find a tree with a small metal tag on it labeled "Section Corner." Thank god! I read the sign and learn that I am approximately 5 miles SW of where I should be. Fuck. This section corner is not even on my map. Do I walk back (uphill) and start over or continue since I at least know where I am? I continue walking west down 3730, figuring I have at least 3 or 4 hours of sunlight left before I need to worry. This was evidently my third stupid decision of the afternoon.

Walking walking walking. I have 3 cigarettes left, a granola bar, and a few sips of water in my bottle. My legs and feet are starting to ache. Reality sinks in. I need to call other people. I call Scott and let him know that if he doesn't hear from me later it's because I'm lost and that my phone might go out. I tell him what road I'm on, which direction I'm heading, and that I'm calling for help. I call the field office (read: the CLIENT) and tell them where I am and ask if anyone is in this neck of the woods. No one is nearby, but someone can come pick me up if I'm totally fucked. I laugh it off, say "it's cool" and keep walking. By now everyone except my project manager knows the situation. Then my phone rings.

"Hey Heather, have you talked to Olmsted?" Oh fuck. "Oh, hi Chris! No, we got separated a little while ago. I think his phone is turned off. " "He's back at the car and has been waiting for a few hours. Where are you?" I'm just thinking "why did he call Chris first and not me??"

So I get in touch with Olmsted and he's on his way. I just keep walking toward where I think he'll come from until I realize I've walked somewhere between 12 and 15 miles, not counting the 3 I already hiked earlier. I see a sign that says 'Now Leaving Rogue River National Forest'. I sit down on the road and tell Olmsted where I am. It's now 6:45pm and the mosquitos are coming out.

Twenty minutes later he shows up. By the time I get to the hotel it's 9:00. If I had taken a left on 3730 I would've walked only 3 miles to my car. Instead I walked nearly 20 miles that day. In steel-toed Frye biker boots. My ass, legs, ankles and feet are still killing me two day later and I have a wicked sunburn.

But I did find these little gems: Porcini (Boletus edulis)

Morel (Morchella esculenta)

Visions of Leatherface Dance In My Head

Today was a pretty interesting day.

Today I was met with my first Very Disturbing Redneck of the season. Coworker and I were parked on a gravel school bus stop unloading our gear when he pulled up in his gray minivan festooned with Army Of One stickers. He was talking to coworker for a bit and, sensing coworker's possible inexperience dealing with landowners I mosied on over just in time to hear VDR mutter, "You have to know where you stand. With Jesus." Normally Christians don't totally make me crawl out of my skin but hearing this with a Douglas County-type southern accent (why do rural Oregonians get a drawl- we're not even near the south) made me veeeeerrry nervous. I just replied, "soooooo, it's okay if we park here, right?"

He was fine with us being on his property (unusual in these parts) but kept insisting we stop by for coffee and a danish when we were done. We thanked him and went on our way.

After a surprisingly lovely 3-mile hike in the oak savannah, seeing all sorts of gorgeous wildflowers, song birds and treefrogs and whatnot (the only good part of the story), I return to my vehicle and begin to shed my field gear and get ready to make the drive back to the hotel. I notice that some of VDR's chickens are all out near the bus stop's brambled edge, pecking around. I knew I hadn't let them out, but just in case I thought I'd go alert VDR so I don't end up with a call from the project field office saying "some angry landowner just called and is suing because you let his chickens out", or somesuch. I go and knock on his door, and a chubby girl who looks about 16 or 17 answers the door.

"Hi, I just stopped by to let you know that I noticed your chickens seem to be loose. I didn't let them out, but I thought you'd like to know."

"Oh, hi! This is my wife, (insert VDR's wife's name here). Don't worry about those chickens -they're a bunch of dufuses. You sure you won't come in for a pop or somethin'?"

(okay I know he sounds really nice, but inside his creepy dark house he was sitting in a beat-down Lay-Z-Boy and there were birds EVERYWHERE. Cages and cages of them. He had an African gray parrot sitting near his shoulder, and he said something to the bird and then it just flew at me and then did a loop-de-loop in midair and returned to him. And his wife looked like she could be his daughter. And the only thing that could've made his wife any creepier is if she had Down's Syndrome. And this guys is like 6'3" and 300lbs. And there were "God Bless" this and "God Bless" that plaques everywhere. And all the curtains were drawn. And his house smelled like taxidermy and humidity. )

"Aw, no thanks sir, I've still got lots of work to do. But thank you very much for the offer! Have a great afternoon, now."

"God bless!"

So I shudder my way back to the rig and take off. Oh, by the way, when I was out on his property I accidentally stepped on a baby garter snake that I didn't know was there until I felt something small and soft under my boot. I looked down and gasped in horror to see that its little red-striped body was bleeding because of my regardless tramping about. I feel like crying just thinking about it. I sat there for a minute contritely blubbering at the poor thing, but when I realized that the only right thing to do was to put it out of its misery, I was a coward. I kept walking. After a minute I sucked it up and turned around, to force myself to pay the consequence of my misstep, but it was gone. I felt relieved that I wasn't going to have to squinch my eyes tight and stomp a baby garter snake, but I also know that it slinked off somewhere to spend its last hours suffering. I feel so ashamed. :(

But the zenith of this story comes later (a few moments ago) when I, on a hunch that I can't shake, decide to Google "(VDR's real name) Douglas County, Oregon". What, ho? A hit? On the State of Oregon's official website? Turns out that one VDR is recently paroled (April 1, 2007) for "Weapons Use, Unlawful." Thank god it's not Sodomy III or anything, but when I'm right I'm totally fucking right.

Further Complaints on Being in the Field

I've been stuck out in the boondocks since Sunday night, and will be here until next Monday night. I intermittently entertain thoughts on how I would handle an intruder, should one happen upon my room. Since this place is only $58/night, the rooms all face out to the parking lot, and anyone can just drive in from the (immediately adjacent) freeway and waltz right up to your door. Last night I opted for leaving the window open while I showered because I figured the fork next to the sink by the bathroom door could gouge out an eye pretty easily. Usually I just think about channeling my freakish upper body strength to throw someone over the 2nd-story banister outside my room's door, but other scenarios include throat-kicking a dude with my steel-toed Frye boots or tearing out a trachea with my rock-hard talons.

Besides the obvious annoyance of living out of Shittown hotels (which is underscored by missing Scott terribly and the general isolation), the work is grueling and the food options are limited. Whenever I get home from the field I'm bloated, sunburned and my face is broken out.

My "healthy meal" options are usually limited to a microwavable Lean Cuisine or the odd bag o' salad (though fitting a bottle of low-fat ranch in the 1-cubic-foot fridge is a challenge), and if I'm hungry and out in the middle of nowhere, my penchant for Deli-Mart corndogs and jo-jos always wins. I'm not made of stone, y'know.

You'd think that I'd get enough exercise to burn off all the calories, but most of my day is spent driving terrifying dirt logging roads up in the mountains and I only end up walking about a mile or two a day. Today I had to hike through thick brush up a 20% slope (that's a gain of 1000 feet in elevation over only a mile of hike) in sleet and hail, and I slipped on a muddy slope and fell on an exposed root right on my hip bone so now I have a huge bruise up the side of my ass.

I always manage to put on enough sunscreen to clog my pores, but never enough to prevent sunburns.

Tonight I plan to get hammered and watch America's Next Top Model. I invented a drinking game for the show. It's called "Whenever a Bitch Cry, Drink". I can plow through a whole Maker's & Diet Coke in like, half an episode.

Oregon Trail 2000, the RPG

These days I am playing my own sordid version of Oregon Trail, wherein I battle ticks, solar radiation poisoning and dehydration, and try to avoid unfriendly locals who want to shoot me off their property unless I flirt or cry. My cowboy hat usually functions as +1 Stealth versus Rednecks, but sometimes those fuckers roll a 20, and the red tail hawk feather in my hat gives me away as some liberal biologist-type.

I also sometimes end up with the ailment of "some spiny thing in my boot", "some wet squishy thing in my boot" or hafta dirt-ski down a 45-degree slope to save myself an extra half mile of hiking, which often results in said ailments. Fortunately, I have immunity to poison oak and bee stings, and I'm only like 100 xp away from another ding. My next quest is "Navigating Through Douglas County With An Aerial Photo & 30-Year Old Topo Map".

* * * *

I'm in Roseburg again. I ate granola and yogurt for dinner in attempt to horde my paltry $110 per diem. Maker's Mark isn't covered by my per diem.

Learned something new today!

The Maillard reaction, commonly known among chefs for creating delicious flavors on seared meats (although usually not scientifically, uneducated lot) is also responsible for the browning effects in self-tanning products. Thank you, Wikipedia!

Hey, so today is Zombie Jesus Day (aka Easter) but it's also the 2-year anniversary of my mom's death. Do I go all Jew on that shit and burn a Yahrzeit candle (not that I'm Jewish, but what the hell, it's Passover), or go with my white-trash roots and drink? Oh, too late. Cheers! I pour out a bit for my fallen negro. Mom, we hardly knew ye.

We Are Homeowners!

We are Homeowners! Pretend you are reading this last week. It has been a crazy week and I didn't have time to post this, even though I wrote it in Word a week ago.

I haven’t blogged in awhile. That is because for the last month and half we have been busy buying and moving into our first house. What a harrowing experience! It rained the entire moving day, we didn’t get any food in us until 4 in the afternoon (our nice new neighbs brought a lasagne), and Scott fucked up his knee! And I ended up with so many sweet bruises I look like someone gave me a boot party.

Project Plans for House:

1) Get hot tub serviced and such. I cleaned it real good (triple-scrubbed and mopped) to get the decomposing bugs and strangers’ pubes/dead skin cells out, but then the jets won’t work and I can’t brominate the water. Build trough to grow bamboo as privacy screen next to hot tub.

2) Build raised beds for veggie garden. Heirloom tomatoes, peppers, and various alliums will be good, and maybe some squash and eggplant. I really want to grow fava beans, but it’s a bit late for those now. Maybe some other pole bean would be good?

3) Build shelves/cabinets into weird attic crawlspace in spare bedroom for blankets and linens, etc.

4) Have housewarming party, Scandinavian-style. I tried my hand at making my own aquavit but it tastes nasty so I’m going to make an aquavit-style syrup and make vodka martinis with it instead. We will have Swedish meatballs and I will also prepare gravlax and maybe some blini or sommat.

UPDATES AND RANDOM GOINGS-ON: Okay, I’ve made three attempts to write and publish this “We Are Homeowners” blog post, but every time I revisit it, I see that more items have been checked off my list. Now we have the bamboo trough planted, way too many veggie seeds started and I have constructed a bioswale in the backyard to catch rainfall and grow carnivorous plants and exotic wetland species that I will never be allowed to spec in a mitigation site.

Our bathroom is currently being remodeled and won’t be finished until Thursday so I have to shower at work (which seems like an HR issue) or else Scott and I sneak into the gym like hobos to get a shower without actually working out and earning it. I mean, we do pay membership to have access to their facilities, but I feel a little guilty about it for some reason.

I have had a sinus infection for the past week and a half and finally got antibiotics for it today. Yesterday I blew a tumor out my right nostril that weighed at least 2 oz. It was like the frightening loogy I had last year, with the bits of sinus tissue and blood embedded in it. I almost saved it in a specimen jar it was so mind-blowing.

I leave for Yakima at 5:45 am tomorrow morning (Jesus fucking Christ that is early) and will be gone for three days which gives me about ten hours plus Saturday to prepare for ill-planned housewarming party. This time I will avoid the bullshit “Tuscan” restaurant. In fact, if I see the guy that runs that joint I will kick him in the dick and tell him it’s pappa al pomodoro.

Friday is the TV On The Radio show, which will kick ass. It pleases me that some random black dudes from Brooklyn can fully bring it on the indie-emo tip, thus proving that black people really are just better than white people at pretty much everything.

I have decided that my blog should just stick to food, especially now that the desktop is un-broken and I can continue working on my cookbook. That is, if I actually had time to wipe my ass.

UPDATE AGAIN, SINCE THIS POST IS OLD NOW:

TVotR was awesome, we were deaf for two days after. We saw the guys in the bar and they didn't have a crowd so I nodded at them and raised my drink. They reciprocated and it felt nice to be acknowledged.

The bathroom looks great. It's good to shower at home again. My sinus infection is gone. Yakima was not terrible.

The party went well - I ditched the Scandinavian thing and did what I know best (and what less than an hour allowed): cheese/fruit plate, crudites, and tapas. After the crowd thinned out a bit, like after 11 or so, I busted out the bag o' prawns and did a quick satay with lemongrass, chili, lime, cilantro and garlic and a quickblender peanut sauce. The prawns disappeared in two minutes (a whole bag's worth!) so I busted out the boneless leg of lamb and quickly cubed it while toasting cumin, coriander, peppercorns and allspice. Ground the spices, rubbed the meat and quick fire in the grill pan. Greta had given me some lavender jelly awhile back, so I nuked it to melty nectar and it was a good dip. The lamb was gone in under five minutes. This is all worth mentioning because as I worked I had a small audience of people gathered around the stove and I felt like Molto Mario or something and it really made me feel like a rock star.

I'm playing Cooking Mama for the Wii and that kicks ass. Also, I've picked my cookbook back up and will be working on it whenever I get time until it's finished. It's fun to see how many new things I've learned since starting it in Fall '05.

Careful What You Ask For, or Duck, Duck, Goose

Friday night Scott and I were at a wedding, talking to my cousin Nathan about bird hunting and whatnot. Since the wedding had a no-host bar¹, I was taking frequent nips off my flask of fine Kentucky bourbon with great aplomb. It should be noted that anything I do with aplomb gets me in trouble.

So I’m talking to Nathan about hunting as I’m wont to do (since he’s only 25 and wildlife is a topic we have in common) and I tell him why doesn’t he bring some duck over on Sunday and I’ll cook him dinner. A fair trade, right? Note I said “bring over some duck” not “bring over some ducks”. Last night at 7:45pm he shows up on my doorstep with six dead ducks, sodden with blood and wetland, heads dangling limply from the firm grip he has on their spindly necks.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with these?!” I ask, perfectly honest about the trepidation I’m feeling about the task before me. “I’m feeling daunted, Nathan. Daunted.”

He tells me I can “either breast ‘em out or if you want to pluck ‘em dunk ‘em in boiling water first to loosen up the feathers but I usually just breast ‘em out and dump the rest. If you’re gonna try to cut ‘em up just cut around the asshole first. You’ll figure it out. You said you wanted to do this!²” I had obviously pictured neatly plucked ducks arriving in a freezer bag, all clean and bumpy little skin waiting for score marks from knife and maybe a little light disassembly before going into the roasting pan. This was not what I asked for.

But I’m a fucking trooper, right? If I can’t even clean a dead bird how do I suppose I’ll ever take up hunting³? So I go pour myself a stiff drink and ready the front porch with spotlight and bucket. Leonard graciously helped pluck the birds (I think it may have been more exciting for him than it should have, but I’m not complaining), bare-handed, even. Scott helped pluck, too, but more importantly, he refreshed drinks and manned the camera to shoot a little video.

How to deal with a dead duck:

1. Tie duck up by feet under spotlight so your vegan hippie neighbors will know that they should never come talk to you, not ever.

2. Pluck fistfuls of feathers out, working tail to head. Careful not to tear the skin off in the process. Rub down off body (this task is made easier by wearing those yellow rubber kitchen gloves). Begin to regret that you started doing this so late on a work night.

3. Have your buddy grasp the head while you chop it off with garden loppers. Similar treatment of wings and feet. Drop extremities into bucket and watch blood drip all over the damn place.

4. Wash birds off in cold water. Take smoke break. Pace around muttering “I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this at 11 on a work night.”

5. Cut out breast meat using approach similar to that for dispatching a chicken or turkey. If feeling ambitious, remove legs as well. If duck was shot by your cousin, i.e., did not come from a farm, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO GUT THE BIRD BEFORE ROLLING A CONSTITUTION CHECK. The guts will be a bloody shred and full of buckshot and the smell is garishly acrid and biotic.

6. Take a moment and come to terms with the fact that there will be no terrine of duck liver in your near future.

7. Dump carcasses into garbage. Ask husband to please, please take this away right now for the love of god. An ashen pallor will emphasize that you are as serious as a fucking heart attack.

8. Awaken at 4am in a cold sweat and the smell of duck blood still in your nose. Don’t get back to sleep for at least an hour. Go to work bleary-eyed and brag to co-workers about what a fucking trooper you are.

The front porch still smells like a killing floor, even after having been hosed down and despite being in the open air. Feathers are matted with blood in little clumps all over the lawn. The legs are too small to confit. I don’t even want to think about cooking the 12 breasts.

…But tonight I think we’ll have some seared duck breast with a molasses-juniper jus and parsnip puree, with a wilted endive and anchovy salad. Oh! Here it is already:

1No offense, but very bad form to make your guests pay for their own drinks, particularly when the “hors d’oeuvres reception” literally consisted of some bags of Doritos and Ruffles (with onion and ranch dips that may have been from dry mix packets or Nalley’s tubs, I couldn’t discern) and some type of sandwich-y pinwheels, the recipe for which was likely found in some Impress your guests with these easy finger foods!! page of Family Circle magazine. You just cannot expect people to bring you a gift and sit through a sermon for like 20 minutes and then make them buy their own drinks and serve them this dreck. That’s just bad etiquette.

2 Nathan talks like he has a chaw in his mouth, even though he hasn’t chewed since high school.

3I had been tossing the idea around last summer when I was seeing flocks of delicious-looking turkey families and coveys of quail running around all over the place while out in the field. Yeah, that’s pretty much over for me now.

Correction!

My BMI is actually only 22.7 according to http://www.nutritiondata.com.

Best leftover turkey usage: Jambalaya-style risotto. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat in pan with minced shallot, chopped celery and onion (I used leeks because I had leftover from my stuffing mise en place). When slightly softened, add chopped red and green bell pepper. Add arborio rice and saute until rice gets slightly shiny, with that white dot in the middle of each grain. Add 1 cup of tomato juice and 1 cup halved grape tomatoes. Toss in a sprig of thyme. Add 1/2 tsp. paprika, 1/4 tsp of celery salt, couple cracks of black pepper, fat pinch of chili flake, and a few fat drops of liquid smoke. Stir. Add 1 cup of hot chicken or turkey stock, stirring nearly always. When stock is absorbed, add another cup of hot stock. Keep doing this until rice is almost done. Add cooked, chunked turkey to risotto and stir in. Add fat pinch of kosher salt (to taste; my homemade stocks are never salted). When risotto is just shy of done (I like it a skosh softer than al dente), add final cup of stock, a handful of peeled prawns, and a handful of frozen chopped okra. Shoot a few dashed of Tabasco in there. Plate; top with grated sharp cheddar and chopped parsley.

Sassafras

God, has it already been a month? I feel kinda sassy today. And by sassy I mean cunty. No reason, really, I just have hit my "dealing with bullshit" threshold. I yelled at a chick from freecreditreport.com when she kept aggressively trying to talk me out of cancelling my membership. There are only so many no-thank-yous I can mutter before I have to tersely say "are you gonna let me quit or not?"

Scott and I joined 24 Hour Fitness a couple of weeks ago. Evidently, to reach my weight loss goal (of only 10 pounds) I should be shooting for 1580 calories a day, plus cardio and resistance training 3 times a week. Are you fucking kidding me?! I have a BMI of like, 25. I just want to get a little girl-cush off my middle so I can start a maintenance program and not put on more weight in my third year with Scott. I've been fastidiously keeping a food journal and hitting 1800-2000 calories a day which is probably a decrease of 500+ of my daily intake. Did you know that one chicken breast is actually two servings? Neither did I, until the Nutrition Facts Desk Reference became the Bible. I'm hitting about 150% of my RDA for fiber, which is great, and about 30g of fat fewer than the 65g recommended. But this topic is tired. After my hour-long workout, what I really wanna talk about is what I'm cooking for Thanksgiving:

• Turkey two ways (I feel like such a whore saying "two ways" - what is this, Top Chef?): legs confit (I bought a pound of duck fat to accomodate this Dyonesian dream I've been having) and roasted breast (brined overnight in white wine with oranges, for that perfect juicy tenderness)
  
• Mashed Yukon gold/roasted garlic potatoes with mushroom-shallot gravy
  
• Bruleed sweet potatoes with sage (I'm preparing a sage custard to pour over the sweet potatoes and will brulee the top with some brown sugar when they're done)
• Savory bread pudding (made from scraps of jalapeno cornbread and nutty artisanal bread heels that I've been stashing up in the freezer) with celery, mushrooms and lots of thyme
  
• Haricots verts au gratin (a fancy way of saying green bean casserole, made with homemade bechamel instead of canned cream of mushroom soup, and topped with toasted shallots and asiago instead of Funyons)
• Wilted spinach with bacon and orange zest
• Cranberry-ginger chutney made with triple-sec
• No room for dessert. We'll just have vodka and cran with a cigarette.

Oh, yeah, we got up at 5am on Sunday to get in line for a Wii. I was #17 in line for the only 18 units the store received. Needless to say, we got one! It has been hell of fun to create Miis for all our friends, and we even made a downie (Downie Sue) and a Chinaman (ChingChong) just for shits and giggles. Now we have a complete baseball team! Hooray!

Taco pizza, ants in my pants and a thorn in my side - adventures in Yakima

I just got back from more adventures in the field. This time, it was a proposed aggregate mine in Yakima, Washington. Yakima is a shitty, shitty town. The first night after Greta arrived, we decided to try a Tuscan restaurant on Yakima Ave (the Main Street of Yakima). This place was to Italy what the Rheinlander is to Germany - garish and a gross (albeit hopefully unintentional) parody on a culture. The interior had been festooned with plaster-of-Paris false fronts that were intended to evoke dining al fresca on the streets of a Tuscan village. This wasn't even the really the problem, though. The first red flag was that all of their servers are apparently 19 years old. None of them could recommend a wine, because they aren't even old enough to drink. And they all just stood in the kitchen gossiping instead of doing their jobs, which angered me.

The second red flag was that there were no Tuscan items on the menu. The Tuscans have been nicknamed by their countrymen as 'mangiafagioli', or the bean-eaters, for their love of the canellini. It's what they're famous for. Not one item on the menu had beans. There were no cippoline onions, no bread salad, nothing Tuscan! They did, however, have taco pizza. WTF?! This also angered me. For $18-25/plate for an entree, I expect to see some fucking Tuscan food!

Okay, so we finally order, and I go for the halibut. Your choices for the sides are spaghetti or fettucini. I figure it'll come just tossed in olive oil with maybe some herbs, so I decide on spaghetti to compliment the delicate texture of the fish. I get my meal and the spaghetti is covered in marinara! With halibut served with lemon pepper and white wine sauce??!! What the fuck were they thinking? If there even was any wine sauce it had been completely buried by the marinara that was so cloyingly sweet that it made my teeth hurt. It was as if these stupid motherfuckers spent a trip in the Tuscan region and decided, "Hey, why not open a restaurant? I know how to boil pasta!" They don't even seem to know that 'spaghetti' is a pasta shape, and not "thin noodles covered in red sauce". Greta's fettucini came swimming in heavy alfredo sauce. If you're going to try to charge big-city prices then you need to HIRE A FUCKING CHEF. The saddest part of the ordeal is that they seriously blew a great opportunity to showcase some of the Yakima Valley's delicious wines. They just totally shit the bed on this one. I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but we should've just gone to the Olive Garden.

* * *

Oh, so the field work wasn't bad. The area where we were working is comprised of a complex of large ponds with adjacent emergent, scrub-shrub and forested wetlands, with little sloughs that flow between them. Beaver activity has created nice open marsh areas, and there were lots of great blue herons and great egrets flying and squawking about. Whenever I see those large wading birds I like to shake my fist and yell "Go back to the Pleistocene!" and that always make me chuckle because I am a nerd.

Greta and I decided that, due to the spatial scope of the site (~200 acres), we should split up and flag the wetland boundaries working in opposite directions. So I'm merrily flagging along, tying fluorescent pink tape to the willows and teasel, and I decide to take a look behind me to see if my line makes sense. Then I notice this huge herbaceous wetland on the opposite side of the willow thicket, and realize that I need to backtrack a bit to pull the adjacent wetlands into my wetland boundary. I see that the quickest way is to cut through a patch of young cottonwoods that were growing on top of a berm, so off I go, pushing my way through the brush.

I get to the other side, and sniff sniff "...do you smell vinegar? Huh, that's weird uh-oh wait I remember something about formicine ants on a David Attenborough show once..." and I look down to see that I am COVERED in these frighteningly large, red and black ants.


They were practically turning themselves inside out trying to bite me and inject me with formic acid (which is similar to in molecular structure vinegar, or acetic acid). Fortunately, I was wearing so many layers that they couldn't get to my skin, but they were moving fast so I whipped off my field vest and dropped it, then started stripping down and brushing them off as fast as I could. I get them off me and am shaking my hoodie to ensure that there will be no hitchhikers, and whew! I got them all off. Then I look at my hoodie and realize that I have been shaking it into a patch of devil's beggar's-tick (Bidens frondosa), a lovely herb common in wetlands that bears yellow flowers which mature into very spiny seeds. My jacket was now covered in tenacious burrs, and I am, once again, angered.


I spent nearly thirty minutes picking these things out of my jacket, still shaking from the ant experience, nervously glancing about to make sure they're not marching back toward me. I decided that it would be best to keep moving, so I just double-checked my hoodie for ants, stuffed it into my vest and kept cruising through the brush. Then a rustling sound in the thatch, out bursts a rabbit and I almost dropped dead of a heart attack. I can't remember the last time I had such a jarring experience in the field.

For the following three days, the work was pretty free from nature drama. I kept seeing those ants, which I realized were protecting their herds of aphids that feed on the sweet cambium of cottonwood saplings. On the second or third day, as I was tying a flag on one, I realized I had squished some aphids and when I turned to look at my flag it was literally writhing with furious ants. I just shuddered and kept moving.

Okay, here's the thing.

I haven't been blogging a lot because since the main computer died all we have is the laptop. Il intolterating everything I've poured my soul hate the laptop because the stupid finger mouse pad thingy is so sensitive that whenver I am blithley typing along, all of a sudden the cursor jumps to the top of the page, adu

You see what happens? This is what I'm talking about.

I want to share pictures, then later I'll get back to the normal business of life stuff.


This one is for Signe.





















I feel as though I look alright in a bikini, so long as I'm tan and up a Vese tree, obscured by epiphytic ferns. I rapidly clambered out of that tree once I discovered an army of ants marching tenaciously toward me. I haven't climbed out of a tree that fast since 1995 (that was the time I drank a cup of Psilocybe tea that hit me all of a sudden in the top of an ash tree growing at swamp's edge, and in a moment of clarity I knew that "up a tree" was no place for a person having a psychedelic experience -well not that time, anyways).








The view from the bure was spectacular. I swam in that very stretch of ocean every day, drinking in all that saline bathwater with my bare skin, only coming out when I craved nicotine and rum. I do love Portland in the autumn, but damn.

File this one under "What the Fuck?"