Category Archives: Utah

Today we went out to lunch. Jim had a rigatoni dish with brown butter, broccoli, Italian sausage and he thinks they were finely chopped nuts. I’d guess hazelnuts. It’s something for me to try out in our home kitchen. Then we attended the “Park Silly” market, for something I’ve been dreaming of for the past two weeks since we were last there.

I bought 1/2 lb. of gorgeous chanterelle mushrooms and plan to make risotto. The farmer/gatherer went into the cooler to get me larger specimens. He also has lobster mushrooms with which I’ve never cooked and he gave me an outline of a recipe with fresh corn, lobster mushrooms and heirloom tomatoes. Garlic and onion, of course. This market will close end of September/early October as will the other farmers’ markets but there is a year-round place being set up 1/4 mile away from us and fifteen vendors will be there, schedule to be determined.

The Wednesday market is not when I want to shop for produce, as I have milk and juice and fruits and veggies delivered at 3:00 every Wednesday morning. So Tuesdays I try to clean out the frig as well as possible and Wednesday morning I pack it in and am not about to go out searching for more!

If we stay here a while I wouldn’t mind some temporary garage storage. That’s where I could keep extra paper products and, in cooler weather, onions and potatoes. I certainly have no room for them in the frig. Yesterday we were downtown (a good one to 1 1/2 hour drive r/t) and on our way back we picked up two three-pound bags of frozen raw dog food. I’d like to get four, but there’s no room in the freezer and we have guests coming so I need to buckle down with recipes, shopping lists, cleaning chores et al.

Tonight I was going to have the second pizza I made from scratch Friday afternoon, dough and all, heated for dinner. Knowing how much Jim hates leftovers I ran out of all plastic goods (quart and gallon zip bags, and tall kitchen garbage bags) so picked up some ground beef and potato rolls and we had burgers for dinner, in the rain. It was supposed to hail this evening so Jim moved his car to a better place overnight. Hopefully it won’t be towed. Heaven knows we’ve spent enough time and energy on this construction debacle next door, costs us a lot of noise, dirt and mess, not to mention a tire punctured by two screws and a nail when I only drove a mile.

Jim’s folks arrive in ten days. Much to do before then. His mother has been called to jury duty tomorrow and hopefully it won’t ruin the vacation they’ve been planning to visit us here. I just found a wonderful activity. We’d love to take them to a baseball game, and hopefully that will work out. But I found a showcase of homes, 2,000 sf to 10,000 sf and it’s going on Labor Day weekend. The family land they farm now will be flooded by the government in a few years so it’s been sold and the timber harvested. They’ve bought 600 acres in an adjacent county and need to build a new house. Margie is always looking for ideas and they love the western style of construction so they should find ideas a-plenty. Hoping they’ll enjoy at least a day of it, it always warms my heart to find something I know they’ll talk about for a while, mansions and baseball games.

Two years ago it was Niagara Falls and Jim’s father being asked to open a lock on the Erie Canal. Those were my old stomping grounds. Here are the new ones and it’s always good to get the in-laws out of their home environment and into “vacation mode.” They’d really like to see a few other things but are open for the rest of the week.

So it’s paying next month’s bills, arranging lessons, planning menus, shopping and cleaning this week, including losing my beloved dining table as my desk so we can eat as humans do. Hope you enjoyed your weekend. If you have a great recipe that incorporates pasta, broccoli, Italian sausage and sauce let me know! I’ll probably do three versions of it and get back to you in a month or so with the winner. Cheers, Dee

There’s an old song by that name, of course the lyrics have been satirized and we even knew those as kids. We moved from a place with humidity in the 90% range to here and a 20% range. How do I know this? A hygrometer. Yes, for $12 you can find out the heat and humidity in your home. And if you stand two feet from it and look at the numbers the humidity will change because of your breath.

I bought it for the guitar but have been keeping it in the living room to check ambient air, and have recently moved it to the guitar case. When I moved to California, I’d get bronchitis every year around the holidays. It’s mid-August here but like CA’s weather and I can’t get over this ick!

Today I followed an idea of one music instructor, as I have not been able to see my regular guy because he’s been out and now I am. I had some Romaine lettuce and put part of a dry leaf in the case with my new guitar. Not touching the guitar, and I placed the guitar on the kitchen counter for this experiment. So it was level, horizontal and after fifteen minutes the humidity inside the case went from 30% to 45%. Apparently the facility at which they’re built is kept between 74-79 degrees and 45-55% humidity. I put it up later and checked and the interior of the case was at 50%.

Now, to the optimal state of humidity for a human being. If we were to stay where we are at present, perhaps two inexpensive humidifiers would make the air beneficial for us (and not just the guitar) and lessen the probability of disease. If we owned the place, a whole house humidifier would be in order. The opportunity to breathe non-desert air would help our lungs and skin, and I wouldn’t mind re-filling and sanitizing the units.

Right now I’m blowing my nose every few minutes and trying to keep this crud from amassing in my lungs. Nature’s paradise, right. Oh, I’m certain the change in indoor moisture won’t have any bearing on cooking at high altitudes. Think about that when your iPhone tells you you’re at 6,500 feet above sea level.

The fruits and veggies came in early this morning and I’ve a couple grapefruit, zucchini, onions, more grapes, a cucumber and a few mangoes and nectarines. We cooked up the ribeyes tonight and they were delicious. I’ll have to get more next week for guests. Having guests is a love/hate relationship. Hate all the cleaning before they arrive and love them while they’re here and, hopefully, afterward.

At any rate, let’s hope they enjoy the “floor show,” every morning and evening on the deck. The stoat/ermine toys with dog Zoe across the glass. It’s a “Hello mother, hello father, here I am at Camp Granada” moment. Every day, twice a day! Who wouldn’t want that on a visit?

It’s time to take the sniffles to bed. Jim’s still up and it’s late. Cheers, Dee

has a whole new meaning. A few weeks ago I tried a delivery service for milk, apple and orange juices, organic fruits and vegetables and applewood smoked bacon. When we had guests I doubled some orders for the week, they got tacked on to my standing order. When I removed them, my entire standing order was removed and has not been the same since. When we have guests we’d like to add to our regular order for the week and then revert to the basic order.

Either I’m messing up, their website is messed up or they want to trap people into huge standing accounts they can’t possibly eat. I’d prefer the former.

That said, we had a delivery at the back door this morning, a dead mouse. The ermine/stoat got one and Zoe scared him through the window and he dropped it for a few moments. I didn’t want to clean it up off the deck so tried to get our dog off the window (totally closed) without success and he claimed and brought his kill somewhere on the property. At least it’s not where I can see it or have to clean it up.

I’ve been remiss for a couple of days because of a nasty flu. Sorry. This morning I opened the slider in our bedroom and heard the cranes at 6:12 this morning. They’re here, but hidden because the grasses are so high. I miss seeing these beautiful killers, whoops, creatures. It seems that everything we see is a carnivore out here.

I’m awaiting another kind of food delivery, had dinner planned from frig and freezer and countertop tomatoes but Jim wants Mexican so I’m going to try a plain quesadilla and see if my compromised constitution can take it. Enjoy your evening and whatever you do, don’t catch this crud from folks in the office! Cheers, Dee

Ermine has been out hunting for a few days, and has brought back….. a girlfriend! So we have a herding dog who is nuts for the first ermine/stoat that lives on the deck, and now there are two. At least she’s getting some added exercise running from one side of the room to the other to chase them from inside the house. Luckily they stay hidden when we’re out grilling. To refresh your memories, here’s a photo of the first one. The second one moves too fast to get a photo from inside.

Here’s the one that’s been here a couple of weeks:

Ermine

Let’s hope we don’t have a family on its way pre-winter. I don’t know their schedule for stoat-rearing but an entire family of these critters may be too much for our Zoe. As it is, we have to keep the sliders downstairs closed so they can’t get in. Outside is fine. Inside is a disaster. Cheers, Dee

We saw some strange critters today, on a trailer nearby. They were so fierce they had to be tied down! Imagine what havoc they would have wreaked in this tiny mountain community! Jim’s brother John is visiting from the great state of Texas.

We drove south through the mountains then north towards Salt Lake City and checked out both lunch and a neighborhood recommended by Jim’s colleagues. We went to a BBQ place we were used to last time we were here on a short-term deal and Jim had his signature Fred Flintstone ribs. Jim wanted to look at the name of a Mexican place across the six-lane road but John said “that can’t be real Mexican food out here in Utah.” He was right, the Texans ascertained that “Guadalahonkies” would not be traditional fare. For those out there from Cafe B, where Ms. Diana Kennedy visited and I offered to drive her three hours to SF to be in the presence of greatness, please don’t tell her I even said the word “Guadalahonkies.” Thank you. It was enough for her to tell me that Diet Coke would ruin my palate.

The neighborhood was quite nice. It was a good day. We couldn’t go to Park City because of a huge art festival going on, no traffic allowed in town, and it would have cost us $30 to just get in town to go to lunch, without the price of lunch, of course.

Jim’s brother is in town and they set out bicycling this evening to allow me to prepare dinner, and he’s flying back tomorrow afternoon. He’s been doing some genealogical research and has a few holes to fill to get his family tree back to the 1500’s! Impressive work so far so we’ll go to one or two research sites tomorrow morning before we head for the airport. Take care and have a good evening, Dee