I'm A Bad Blogger

Apparently, trying to write two blogs daily is too much. I totally cheated and pre-blogged for Growing Tables so I didn't have to write over the weekend. But having done that, I justified not touching a computer for 48 hours.

We spent a good weekend running errands, walking on the beach, and seeing our friend's musical performed on the big, Crescent City stage. Now we're winding down the weekend and mentally preparing to move from our temporary lodgings to our house in a couple weeks. 

Many apologies for the missing blog posts and pictures that might have gone with them. I'll make it up somehow.

Books! I Love Them!

I've been reading a lot recently, both fiction and non-fiction. Finally got around to reading Salt, Sugar, Fat and was suitably horrified by what I learned. (Did you know that a half cut of Prego Traditional tomato sauce has as much sugar as three Oreos??) I'm in the middle of Michael Pollan's Cooked right now and enjoying it. I had been hesitating for some silly reason, but then saw it at the library.

But tonight, as soon as I finish writing this, I will open up a book I am very excited to start:

I love, love, love good speculative fiction, including some very dark dystopias. Margaret Atwood's trilogy, ending with MaddAddam, is definitely on the list of very dark dystopias. In anticipation of reading this final book, I reread the first two over the past couple weeks and found them just as good the second time around. (Might have been the third time around for Year of the Flood. Not sure about that.)

So now I'll bid you good-night so I can start reading! I just hope I can stop...

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Oh, But She'll Be SEVEN!

Three years ago, almost exactly, we went with Darcy for a hike around Mill Creek Campground. It's closed in the winter, and so empty, and we shared pictures of Darcy playing a leaf-tossing game and the amazing world of moss and fungus.

Yesterday, we took Darcy and a friend to the same spot for some scootering. It was sunny and they had a great time, and once again, there were mushrooms everywhere:

For one of the first times around here, we also saw lots of puffballs, long past their prime. The first batch were on this stump:

But then we were on the lookout for them and found them on the ground in several different places. There was some puffball-stomping; the cloud at Darcy's feet is the spore cloud:

But our girl isn't four anymore, like in the first picture. Tomorrow morning, she will wake up and be SEVEN. How did that happen? Our little girl is disappearing into a grown-up body, but at least she still thrills over seeing banana slugs and stomping on puffballs and riding her scooter through dry leaves. She's moving on to other things, too, like helping our friend Michelle-the-baker make the chocolate cupcakes with chocolate mousse filling, chocolate buttercream frosting, and chocolate shavings that are going to school tomorrow. (Sorry, KRECR!!) But here she is, two days from her seventh birthday:

A Cheat

I am amazingly uninspired to blog today. We had a good day. We scootered around a closed camp ground -- one of the many exciting things Del Norte has to offer on beautiful fall days. We saw stumps covered in puffballs, climbing banana slugs, and many other wondrous things. Unfortunately, all of the images of wonder are still hanging out on Michael's phone.

So for your enjoyment, I present the other blog I'm writing for daily this month. Because I am a masochist.

Apparently, She Just Needed A Bed.

Oh cats. They're cute and furry, and they purr and sometimes let you pet them. They're fun when they play. And then there's 4:30 in the morning. 

That's when Paige likes to let us know how desperately she needs our love, how much she misses us in the night, and how empty her bowl is.

But not this morning! Yesterday, before heading off to the deliciousness of our Requa Inn dinner, we bought Paige her very own bed. She's never had a cat bed before, not exactly sure why not, but she hasn't. She'll sometimes crawl in with us for a while, but she doesn't stay long. 

It took her a while to warm up to it and hop in (and I had to add a towel she's been sleeping on to coax her interest), but once she did, she stayed in! All night long. At NINE O'CLOCK, when we woke up (thank you, S family for keeping our other early riser overnight!), she was curled up looking very proud of her very own bed. No early morning meows. No kneading me in my sleep. No paws on the face. 

She just needed her own little bed to be a wonderful morning cat.

If Your Menu Said...

Matsutake mushroom. Stinging nettle. Smoked sturgeon.

That was how our fifth course of a tasting menu was described tonight. I was picturing a roasted (?) mushroom, sauteed greens, and a small piece of fish. 

What would you picture?

What I didn't picture was a small white pitcher being put on my plate. It was tiny. Like an individual pitcher of cream that might come with a cup of coffee.

There was a green foam hiding the rest of the contents, but as I dipped my spoon in, I found a velvety mushroom soup, with shavings of smoked sturgeon at the bottom. It was not at all expected, but it was so good.

It was maybe a quarter cup -- maybe -- of complete deliciousness that made me wish my tongue was long enough to reach the bottom of that little pitcher. I didn't try, although I wanted to. We were, after all, seated at a table for six and had just met two of our dining companions as the meal began.

Michael and I splurged for a late anniversary dinner and went to the Historic Requa Inn's Beermaker's Dinner tonight. (He was in Pennsylvania for the deal deal last month.) It was eight courses of magical cooking -- not a single miss on any of the plates, starting with a halibut fillet on top of creamy wild rice and ending with a panna cotta served on caramel sauce. I used a leftover piece of fry bread to mop up extra sauce from the family-style serving dish. I'm not ashamed -- it was the perfect end to a perfect dinner.