Archives for August 2009

Road Warriors 2009

August 29, 2009

Backstory:

It’s no secret that I feel I missed my calling as a writer back in 1985, midway through my second year of college when I took the much-traveled path from the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Technology to… what? Well, that was the decision. I knew at that point I wasn’t cut out for a career in Chemical Engineering. (Don’t ask.) But what DID I want to do? My dad sent me to a career counselor, I did a lot of soul searching and what did I choose? Business school, aka Carlson School of Management. Now, don’t get your undies in a bundle, I know that Carlson is considered one of the most highly regarded undergraduate business schools around, but back in 1985? Suffice to say: it wasn’t. So why did I choose the Business School over the Journalism School? Because I didn’t lose any credits. Simple as that, and my fate was sealed. So I graduated in business (with a big, fat crush on my Econ teacher, Wade Dyke–what a name!). And promptly got a job at an ad agency doing account work. After a rather dramatic end to that job, I started freelancing in the new field of “desktop publishing” while I looked for a sales job in the computer industry (my other big love). The late 80’s were tough times to find a job, so I just plugged along doing my freelance work. Today I call myself a bona fide graphic designer. I know I’m not actually a “real” designer, but my clients seem to like what I do well enough, so it’s all good.

I know what you are thinking: I digress! I know it, I do! But the background is important, because it’s my rationalization for starting this next series of posts: The Road Warriors 2009. It’s simply the journal I kept while on our annual camping trip this year. To be honest, my garden is a fricken mess, my chickens have turned out to be roosters, my menopausal rage is in remission and I don’t have any good recipes to share. So I figured, why not? You might find it interesting and laughable. Plus, Dave and I tend toward the obsessive/compulsive when finding camping spots, so maybe you might even like to try some of the spots we picked.

Road Warriors 2009: Colorado, take 2 August 19-27, 2009

August 19
Pre-trip: no planning at all this year. Might backpack, might not. Might balloon ride, might not. Might get a hotel room, might drive all night. You get the picture. This morning I brought the car in to have a slow leak on the front tire fixed. Turns out it wasn’t fixable and now I have four brand new tires, to the tune of $940. It rained all day, 3.5″ to be exact, preventing me from popping the camper up to determine if any mice have taken up residence and packing it with sleeping bags, cleaning it up, etc. Hope all is OK!

The tentative plan was to leave around 5:30, after soccer. As usual, we were late getting started and didn’t roll out until 8:15pm, turned around about 3 miles from home to get Charlie’s Camelback, another backpack and what else? I’ve already forgotten… In Waconia, kids moaning about being hungry (15 minutes from home, mind you), so we stopped at Subway (picking up the requisite mayo packets that my kids insist is “way better than Hellman’s”). Dave drove from there, and in Belle Plain (another 10 minutes from Waconia) decided he was too tired to continue. How we doin’ so far?

Jen drove till about 2:30 am, being the rock-star that she is, only screwing up once outside of Mankato when she chose hwy 60 instead of 90. Oops. Road closed detours delayed about 30 minutes, which she wouldn’t even had to divulge if she weren’t so honest, as everyone was fast asleep at the time. Jen made it to Oakland, NE where Dave took the wheel.

Lots of construction and more detours and delays later, Dave took a sleep pit stop from 5-6 am. Potty and coffee at 6:30 in Kearny, NE. Stopped for breakfast and gas in Julesburg around 8:30. Jen drove from there, through Denver, quick stop at Walmart for new water jug (we have the hardest time finding a non leaking water jug!) and propane.

As usual, we had a very hard time finding “just the right spot” to stop for lunch (out of the cooler, of course, because we like to torture our kids with homemade food). Out of desperation and memories of eating lunch at 4pm during vacation’s past, Jennie pulled over at the top of a mountain pass and we ate a loud and dusty lunch around 2:30 as semis roared past the “scenic overlook.” Dave was highly critical, but at least we got to eat.

Dave drove from there to the Great Sand Dunes Campground. We took site #49. We were sure our site from the 2004 Colorado trip was right next door (#51), which is pretty funny because we drove around the whole place 1 or 2 times before settling on #49. I guess we know what we like. We ate penne pasta with roasted turkey, browned butter and sage leaves. Had a couple beers and went out to the Dunes for the sunset. But it was so WINDY! We couldn’t even open our eyes! Sandstorm!

Hoofed it back to the campground. The wind was literally rocking the camper and a fire was impossible, leaving us only one real alternative: GO TO BED! The kids couldn’t figure out why we were so tired… driving all night will do that to you, I guess. From their point of view, they drove all night too, so it just didn’t make sense.

Day two: Pagosa Springs, here we come!

Buzz the Fishing Vizsla

August 15, 2009

I figured it was time for a post, but I’m up at my parent’s in Hayward, away from my garden and kitchen. My parents do most of the cooking. I sit on my big, white, lazy butt. Since I don’t have much to complain about, it makes sense that I take this post to acknowledge a somewhat famous part-time resident of Round Lake in Hayward, WI. That would be my dog, Buzz the Fishing Vizsla. From the minute he screams out the back gate of the Suburban to the time we leave, dragging him wet and shivering from the lake minutes before we drive away, he fishes. Patiently, relentlessly, fruitlessly. He starts when the ice goes out in early May and goes thru Labor Day, usually our last trip up until the holidays. We up his food intake to about six cups a day to combat the hypothermic tendency of calorie depletion. (I know that doesn’t make sense, but I like the sound of it.)Even today, on August 15th, the lake temperature is only 69 degrees. I went in for the first time all year yesterday and it took my breath away. A sore departure from my 87 degree pool! Buzz doesn’t seem to mind.

And this fact is what has got me thinking about the similarity between Buzz, and Dave (my husband). Dave also is willing to fish from sun up to sun down without catching a single fish. Like Buzz, his techniques are often in question. I couldn’t find one to show you here, but I have several far-away snapshots of him sleeping with a pole in his hands. Dave loves to fish. Dave loves to sleep. And sometimes he does them at the same time.

It makes me wonder what Dave’s ultimate goals are for fishing. Is it to catch fish? Or to escape the inlaws while at the cabin? His wife? Or to sleep? When in doubt, select “All of the Above.” Dave is actually in Alaska right now with Charlie fishing with his dad, brother and brother in law. I hope he isn’t sleeping.

Anyway, back to Buzz. He also loves to fish. Because he is up here quite a bit in the summer (my parents generously offer to take our dogs in the summer when we go out of town), he has ample opportunity to spend entire days honing his skills. Boats drive by just to see him. Everyone asks about it. We are so used to it that I guess we don’t think anything of it. Yesterday, he started at 9:30am and didn’t come out until approximately 11:30am — when a girl on a jetski stopped me 20 minutes into my solitary kayak ride to ask me if that was my dog. Sure enough, Buzz had followed me and was all but drowning, what with his bad leg and all. I hauled him out of the water and into the kayak, where he shivered and tipped us for the rest of the trip. I took solace in the idea that being out of the water for about 45 minutes allowed his core temperature to rise above 70 degrees. Once back, he then fished until 4pm when we took him on a boat ride for an hour, and then again until 8:30pm when we hauled him outta there. A good 9 hours in total. Sometimes he stands in the shallows, like below.

Other times, and more often, he stands on his hind legs in neck-deep water and propels himself around upright with his front legs tucked up like a kangaroo:

He truly has a screw loose. I searched youtube for other fishing dogs and realized there are some that actually catch fish instead of just staring into the water. And maybe if there were any fish in this stupid lake, Buzz would catch some, too. But somehow I doubt it.

Enjoy the video:

Keeping Up With the Beans

August 6, 2009

(and zuchini…)

I have a confession to make: my family & I hate canned and most frozen vegetables.

This poses quite a challenge for the whole local food movement because it disallows us from truly utilizing my garden’s bounty by canning and freezing the excess harvest. Come December, I hang my head in shame as I shop the produce aisle of Cub Foods purchasing plastic bags full of imported green beans. It is a serious shame. But isn’t it worse to slave away, steaming and freezing green beans that languish in the freezer, only to get fed to chickens in July? Tough call.

Anyway, because of the frozen food aversion, I give away a lot of my harvest. It is one of the only nice things I do with no ulterior motives. (Really.) I do still end up preserving quite a bit: raspberry jam, tomato salsa, I cook and freeze kale (it suffers none of the indignities that beans or carrots do when boiled and frozen), etc. Oh, and I pickled several pints of green beans this year, completely ignoring my notes from six years ago that said, and I quote, “do not pickle beans. no one eats them,” because I figured a lot can change in six years. But mostly I ignored the note because I have so many effing green beans. Aside from freezing them again — and notes from last year’s wasted frozen beans score a lot higher on my believability chart than the pickled beans from 6 years ago — I just don’t know what else to do with them! You wouldn’t believe how many of today’s fine UPS and FedEx drivers are uninterested in free bags of green beans! In addition, two large families I used to supply started their own home gardens. The nerve!

Anyway. I have never professed to be a good cook. I cook good. There is a difference. A “good cook” is creative and inventive. I cook other people’s recipes “good.” However, today I actually invented a recipe.

I am calling it my KEEPING UP WITH THE BEANS recipe. Plus, I offloaded several zuchini into it, so that is an undeniable bonus. It also happily accepted cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and onion. I’m pretty sure that you could add just about anything — in vast quantities.

I will reiterate that last point: It uses vast quantities of garden produce. I say this because of how many times I have searched for recipes in order to use up some massive quantity of zuchini, for example, only to find that instead of four, 5 lb zuchinis, it calls for only 1/2 cup. Totally pointless. This recipe uses LOTS of beans. And since it’s a salad, you can keep it in your fridge for days and munch on it at will. Fatty finds this very handy, and I’m sure you will, too.

Twp important tips:
1) DON’T OVERCOOK VEGGIES AND
2) USE AN ICE BATH IMMEDIATELY TO STOP THE COOKING AND RETAIN COLOR & CRUNCH!!

I steamed the beans, corn and zuchini all together. I cut up 2 cukes, 1/2 large onion and as many cherry tomatoes as I had on hand. After that I thought “hmmm….” and added a can of garbanzo beans and bacon crumbles, which were both super good. I went scrounging for some blue cheese as the crowning glory, but alas, my hunk was no longer even blue. It was orange and greenish. And while I am a huge proponent of pushing the expiration envelope, even I have standards. I threw it out and chopped up the remaining fresh mozzarella I had, which was good, but blue would have been better.

For the dressing, I used about 1/4 c balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon honey, 1 teaspoon dijon mustard, then slowly whisked in olive oil until the mixture was thick and tasted good. I am guessing it was about 1/4-1/3 cup of olive oil. I added salt and pepper to taste. I tossed the dressing with the cooked, iced and chopped veggies, then chilled. Before serving, I sprinkled skinny strips of basil and mint over the top.

It was FABULOUS and GUILT FREE! Try it. And let me know what changes you made. Pine nuts? edamame? Comment!