Fall Hath Cometh....

Some shots of the Pig Roast and Apple Pressing schindig last weekend. We had a Girl vs Guy pig competition (the girls totally won) and lots of jugs to fill with sweet apple nectar!

After a strategy meeting the night before, Adrienne, Kathy, and I started prep on our pig at about nine thirty the next morning. I chopped garlic and made a dry rub paste for the inside body cavity, Adrienne put the rotisserie together (with the help of her trusty truck tool kit), and Kathy made up the magic pineapple juice solution....
Here we are getting the pig onto the rotisserie shaft and securing it into place with the tines....


Molla was an avid audience, just waiting for us to drop something...

After rubbing the whole inside of the pig with chopped garlic, salt, pepper, and spices, we sewed her up to lock in all the delicious flavors...

Here we are injecting the pig with the pineapple solution. One of the benefits of knowing animal science people: a ready supply of huge hypodermic needles :-)


After we managed to get coals lit and the pig in place, we started the coconut milk bathing...


Adrienne and Eric pressing apples. Kathy and Rich live on a small orchard and even though we filled about 50 glass jugs, we didn't even make a dent in the amount of apples.



Adrienne killing time, waiting for the pigs to cook.

The boys unveil their attempt....


Mom, Paul, and Tony...

After six hours of cooking...

Kathy and Adrienne take the pig off the rotisserie...there was almost a mutiny when I enforced a twenty minute rest period. I think fifteen minutes was all Adrienne could wait before hacking into it...

The pack gleefully waiting for crunchy ears, tail pieces, fat, and skin discarded by Adrienne and Tony.

We all had a great time and I must say that, while they could've stood some improvement, both the pigs were successes which made it an even bigger triumph since none of us knew what the hell we were doing :-)

Chin up everybody....

An excerpt from this week's Fatted Calf Newsletter. I couldn't say it better myself and decided not to try:

When The Economy Stinks

When the economy stinks I crave spaghetti carbonara with plenty of pancetta, golden egg yolks and pecorino cheese. And when the dollar sinks I wrap figs in lonza and think about a warm autumn afternoon on a hillside north of Siena in the last days of the lira.

When there are so many hurricanes I can't keep their names straight and floodwaters threaten to rise I find myself at the market savoring the juices of a late season peach and marveling at the dense flesh of tomatoes warm from the sun.

When word that another luminary's light's gone out leaving the kitchen feeling cool and dim, I put a roast in the oven, pour a glass of red wine and toast to tomorrow, to health, to good food and drink.

When the news from the world leaves me shaking and I feel like my heart might break, I turn off the radio and turn on my stove. I do what I know: I cook. If friends and family have an appetite, I'll set the table.

See you at the market!

The Learning Curve of Yarn....and other Stuff

Ok, just a quick post to show what I've been up to the passed week....
Below are pictures of Tanglwood Fiber Creation's "new toy": a mini spin-machine that really does work wonders. However, the teeny weeny cup that the directions showed catching water was very misleading....hence the towels in the picture. I was frantically looking for containers to catch the water as it poured out of the spigot, snatching bowls, cups, tupperware, anything within reach-gasping with horror as still more and more water gushed all over the floor. It filled the ceramic bowl in the photo three times before it finally slowed to a drip...drip..drip. Relieved to see the water finally slowing, I surveyed the damage. A small lake had enveloped my feet and it took four kitchen towels to clean up the mess. Next time, before installation, I'm calling the Laundry Alternative, Inc. sales rep and having him come out to do a training session for all operations personnel....
Anyway, after the initial learning curve, I found that it worked wonderfully and all the skeins were dry by the morning, ready for me to take to St. Helens for Courtney.

After spinning, the skeins were only slightly damp.

Another big event this week: Mt. Angel's Oktoberfest! It's the largest of it's kind in Oregon, but neither RaNita or I could figure out what the heck the people in the RVs do for three days. It was fun in a corny tourist, Americanized kinda way, but people drive hundreds of miles to Mt. Angel (the town with no traffic light, or stop sign) to partake. The two of us just didn't get it (but RaNita is LDS and I don't like beer, so perhaps we weren't the demographic?) but had fun lunch, starting with a ear of corn each from the Mt. Angel Fire Station booth, then a Brat with Kraut (of course), and Apple cake with Butter Sauce (which was the devil). All in all we were glad we went, but were able to see the whole festival in one hour. Seriously, what do those people do for three whole days???? Don't understand.....
The "famous" Oktoberfest clock. This has fully rotating figures, including an indian, a pioneer couple, nun, bishop, and a german man playing a tuba. It plays music and the grand finale is the two children on the swing roll out and sing "Eidelvas". Creamed corny....

Bloomin' Onions....very German....wink, wink....

Yes, they even had Mt. Angel citizens dressed in costumes pulling innocent people out of the crowd to do the Chicken Polka. I started to get a glazed look of horror on my face and heard RaNita quietly mention that it might be time to get back to work....

Hey, I did see the actual stones that were the inspiration for our new colorway: "Erica's Sunstone". This is a native Oregon semi-precious stone and I think the colorway matches it perfectly. Great job Erica!

And finally, new big-girl dishes! Well, new to me. Jan's mother is moving to a new place where the staff cooks meals and so kindly offered to let me purchase them for a good price. It's a set for twelve that includes dinner plates, salad plates, bread plates, cups, saucers, a gravy boat, a platter, a serving dish, salt and pepper shakers, soup bowls, dessert bowls, and a sugar bowl. Yeah, I've had to some reorganizing....but aren't they nice? It's great to have matching dishes and I can't wait to cook for Mom when she comes up (two more days).

All lined up for a wash and this was only one box :-)

Carlos Santana and the Museum of Glass

Well, this weekend was another one spent jaunting off to some far away location, concert-bound! This time, my good friend Adrienne (who has made many appearances on my blog) was kind enough to accompany me to Tacoma, Washington to see Carlos Santana. Jan McMahon once told me that if I ever had a chance to see Santana, I should jump at it, so I did and purchased two tickets to his show at the White River Amphitheater. It was great and I was again surprised at the variety of social demographics that showed up to see him. There were hardcore latin fans (that knew all the spanish words), old hippies (who tried to say the spanish words), and young college students (who didn't care about the words at all). All-in-all, totally worth what I paid for the tickets, which is always nice.
Here are pictures of Sunday morning, after a very late night listening to car alarms going off and people arguing in the parking lot of our hotel room. Adrienne and I decided that since we were in the area, we should check out the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. Mom, Dad, and Erica went about a month ago and I've wanted to go since I saw Mom's pictures.
Adrienne doing a fantastic Vanna White impression...

One of the galleries (that I technically wasn't supposed to take pictures of)...



These photos are from inside the Hot Glass Studio. A whole team of glass artists were working on one project, two artists making clear glass rings and the other two attaching them to a long, cylindrical vase.
Here are the two artists who were making rings of various sizes...


The two artists attaching the rings to the vase...


Adrienne watching from the mezzanine...

Here is the large screen close-up of the floor action for all the people in the theater-style seats.

Now, we couldn't go to a Museum like this and not visit the gift shop! Here are a couple of pictures I took while inside.
Hand-blown Christmas tree ornaments...


Some artwork for sale....



Here is a shot Adrienne took of me and Molla outside the Museum. This large cone is actually the roof of the Hot Glass Studio....


Molla, being her lovable self. She was very good the whole trip (well, pretty good. She did get into her extra food and chow it all while we were at the concert. The only evidence was a very clean plastic bag...)

Here is The Bridge and Wall of Art that you can see from the highway. This wall and the two blue glass towers welcome visitors to Tacoma.

Adrienne and I took turns taking pictures of each other.....




My splurges...the green one will be mine forever, but the rainbow colored sphere is on its way to LA, destined for Niki Taguchi's house. It was her 50th birthday this year and although I was invited, I was unfortunately unable to make the party. Hope she likes it!


We had a great time and if you're ever in the Tacoma area, I highly recommend the Museum of Glass!